CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW
Call: VE3NE
Operator(s): VE3NZ, VE3NE
Station: VP5B
Class: Multi-Op HP
QTH: vp5
Operating Time (hrs): 40
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 1498 State/Prov = 55 Countries = 62 Total Score = 1,066,455
Club: Contest Club Ontario
Comments:
Hello,
George and I decided to have an arm chair expedition and went to the Carribean
for the first time.
Comparing with Toronto 160 meter sounds completely different down there.
The contest started very well and we have logged almost 600 contacts in the
first five hours. Then the qso rate dropped rapidly. Some EU stns were loud but
not as loud as before the contest so I think condx were not the best although we
worked a bunch of them. Saturday afternoon George and I were sokin? up the sun
in the garden and around 3:45 I went in to the shack to check the band. To my
surprise I could hear DX stations. For an example DL6RAI, DK1MM, HB9ATA, F6IRF
and few others were already 579 to 599 before four o?clock local time. The sun
sets only at 5:30 so it was still way up high. The only problem was that nobody
heard us at all. I was chasing them for a while than gave up and rather called
US. To my biggest surprise I had the same result with them. They were CQ-ing
into my face like I didn?t have antenna at all. I started to worry a bit but we
have came to the conclusion that it must be one-way condx. We were cq-ing but
got only very few reply. Things got better almost immediately after the sun was
behind the horizon.
The evening started very good and we didn?t even use the pennant RX antenna
because we could receive stations on the vertical.
However this situation changed dramatically during the night. The noise became
so strong that I had big difficulties to pick up stations.
Signals were actually way better than the first night and EU signals were very
good too. I had huge pileups time to time but unfortunately QRN got really bad.
I was very angry and frustrated. Even the sound of the surf from the ocean
seemed lot stronger on that night and it was driving me crazy. I tried to close
the window but I had to guard my frequency in the very crowded band too. If I
had just one more arm? I was exhausted and my head was full with the static
crashes. Fortunately it was time for George to take over the station and he
saved me from having a nervous breakdown?hi
According to George the band settled down later and it was quiet again until it
closed down completely in the morning. Sunday afternoon was pretty much the same
regarding the early DX condx, however we didn?t fell for the trick at this time
and left them alone until sunset.
All in all it was a great contest and a great experience. We could probably have
a few more multipliers, if we had dx cluster going. I am sure we made some
mistakes and missed many mults, but we enjoyed it and had a super time. Thanks
to Bud, K4ISV for letting us to use his nice station. Hope to see you again in
another contest.
73 Lali and geo
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