First some figures:
Call used: PI4COM
Entry Class: Multi Op, Single Xmit
Band QSOs Pts QTH DX Zones
80 185 388 10 42 10
40 276 679 26 63 22
20 518 1327 50 75 30
15 100 242 4 57 22
10 9 23 0 9 6
--------------------------------------
Total 1088 2659 90 246 90
Score: 1132734
Operators: PA3ACA, ALP, BDQ, BWD, DMH, GBQ, GXF, PB0AIC
Rig: 2x TS850S, SB1000, PK232
Ant: 10 m : Vertical
15 m : 4 el. yagi @ 17 m
20 m : 4 el. yagi @ 24 m
40 m : 2 el. yagi @ 27 m, dipole
80 m : Dipole (1st night), 1/4 vertical (2nd night)
With the hard core of our group travelling in the caribbean and playing around
this contest as
J77C we had to improvise to have PI4COM in this contest. The operator list
indicates something
totally different but many part-time operators increase the headcount but do
not show the real
picture.
Only 5 hours before the contest we could start building the station. As we had
only 3 people to
do this job we were very glad that we had the beams for 20 and 40 up, and the
dipole for 80
working just 1 hour before the contest would start. We needed this hour to get
the computers and
rigs running and as you can imagine we were quit happy when we got one of the
station fully
running 5 minutes before kick-off.
But then our 4th operator joined, Mr. Murphy. The 40 meter beam showed extreme
bad SWR and a
quick check showed that the connector to the matching unit caused this problem.
However, getting
there to fix this is not so easy and it would require the tower to be lowered
so we can climb it.
Consequently this would mean that the 80 meter dipole would come down also. As
getting the 40
meter tower down and up again costs about 2,5 hours we had to decided to mount
a 40 meter dipole
and wait till the morning before fixing the yagi. A severe loss as we had
problems finding a
suitable running QRG on 40 and none of the DX we tried to work did copy us. The
next night we did
not have that problem as we could make a nice run to JA and US on 40 trying to
make up the first
night.
When preparing the Multiplier station we found that using exactly the same
equipment does not
mean they work the same. We had to use a .84 khz TX-offset to make sure that
people heard us. Do
you have any idea how long it takes to find out that this is the problem......
It was good to see that 10 meters opened up, only we were not to pleased as we
lost our 10 meter
yagis a few weeks ago and had only a small vertical to work 10 meters. We will
have to work hard
to have this fixed before the WW SSB.
Any way we are pleased with the result. Nice to meet all these africans on the
bands.
The main advantage of this contest is that you can answer questions raised by
visitors while
running. When will we get mouse controlled CT with CW and SSB receiving
performance.......
Cu all next time..
On behalf of the PI4COM crew.
Alex PA3DMH
PS. We must have missed the announcement of some kind of premium for each
spot made in the DX-cluster for TY1RY.......... OK, TY is something
special,
but 10 spots an hour or so is a bit to much.
/////\\
( # # )
-----oOO-(_)-OOo-----------------------------------------------------
Alex van Hengel, PA3DMH
Contestgroup Oude Maas PI4COM/PA6WPX
Homepage PI4COM : http://www.euronet.nl/users/norf/pi4com.html
1996 Carib Tour : http://www.igr.nl/~pa3dmh/tour1996.htm
Internet e-mail : pa3dmh@igr.nl
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