CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB
Call: SM6WET
Operator(s): SM6WET
Station: SM6WET
Class: SOAB(A) HP
QTH: JO68
Operating Time (hrs): 29,52
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 125 7 47
80: 172 14 64
40: 152 15 79
20: 90 14 47
15: 104 15 56
10: 27 5 16
------------------------------
Total: 670 70 309 Total Score = 383,169
Club:
Comments:
THE VERTICAL APPROACH
I am very pleased with this contest as it is since I started on HF in 2004 the
best result I ever had in a DX Contest. Ofcource the propagition was quite bad
even though 10m was a surprise. However there was nothing wrong with the
activity. Could have been a few more stations on in different African
countries. But maybee I was just out of luck.
My normal conditions is a very small lot of 480m² minus the space for the
house, the garage and 2 parking lots. As you can imagine there is not much
space for antennas and topband is just out of the questions if I dont put up
some balloon supported vertical. I will have to choose between ¼-wave vertical
on 40m or inverted-L on 80m + a tribander.
Therefor I chosen to go to the summer cabin in the woods for this contest. It
has it's advantages like: No TVI, less noise and static, no disturbing
neigbours, friends or solicitors, YL not wanting me to fix this and that on the
house and most importantly lots of 20m high pine trees.
The disadvantage is however: Cabin is not insulated meaning alot of time
shuffling wood in the furnace, lots of time carrying in wood to the furnice,
only a outhouse toilet which is freezing cold and worst of all - no beam.
Setup:
Tranciever: Yaesu FT-920 (No SSB filter, it only fits 1 and it is for CW)
Amp: Ten-Tec Titan 425
Interfaces: Exodin soundcard interface and Microham interface to keep the log
on the right band.
Log: Writelog 10,47
DVK: Soundboard DVK in Writelog but changed to built in DVK in rig.
Cluster: Rolled out some 50m telephone cable to neighbour cabin and used
dial-up internet access on free call number (ofcource with neibours
permission).
Antennas:
10m: ECO Antenne 7-band multiband vertical
15m: ECO Antenne 7-band multiband vertical
20m: Vertical wire dipole with radial slightly leaning towards west, feed up
7m. Wirethickness 6mm² and insulated.
40m: ¼-wave wire vertical hung in a burch tree, feed point up 4m with a
RF-choke and 8 elevated radials leaning down to 1,5m hight. Antenna is over a
swampy ground and overlooks a lake towards the west so the radial stakes
towards west was hit down right on the edge between lake and land. All wire
1,5mm².
Had a half-square beam made but never put it up.
80m: ¼-wave wire vertical hung in a pine tree, feed aprox 1m over ground with
12 on-ground radials (I know should be more but hey, it was a weekend setup).
Vertical was 1,5mm² and radials a mix.
160m: ¼-wave wire sloping inverted L hung from a pine tree.
The model was feeding it up at approx 4m, 16m vertical and then the rest
slanting/leaning away as far as possible, the end came some 6m from the ground.
There was 2 elevated radials going north and south only. I had no radials below
to make a ground grid. Wire was 1mm².
No special recieving antennas (unfortunatly).
All the contests I entered have been for the main goal of working some new DX
countries, new band countries or new states or similar. That have been the main
focus and therefor I have put a great effort in trying to work multipliers,
countries I new would be new and just having a good time. This time I was going
to try to put more effort into 160m and 10m as I had not worked a 100 countries
there yet.
A wise ham I know once said, that if one put an effort into a contest one
should be able to work a DXCC over a contest weekend. I dont know if he ment
with a large beam or as me, with only verticals but I never managed to do it
from home with my 3-el tribander on top of my chimney. At home I only got
around 85ish. Calculating countries worked when I finally got all the QSOs in
my Lux-Log main logging software I was surprised to see that I finally done it.
105 DXCC and that is ofcource not counting the contest multiplier of Sicily as a
country.
So - what misshappens did I have......? Only a few 5.
A few times I started to not get any power out, I turned to CW for a quick tune
and the power out was back and also when I went to Sideband, perhaps there was
some protection thingy that moved in on the Titan. I experianced this problem a
few times during the last night.
Clicking spotted calls on the bandmap should be done carefully, some stations
were spotted with a QSX out of my band. One has to pay attention to if the
radio goes split and were it goes. It is easy to TX out of band.
Another problem I had was with the writelog DVK. Everything worked fine trying
out the echo microphone application running my Heil headset into the mic input
of the soundboard of my home desktop computer, then out of the soundboard
through my Exodin interface into the patch port of the FT-920.
However, when doing this with my laptop my voice was sooooo low on modulation I
could barely hear myself in the monitor even if I screamed in the mic when
recording - the noise was however very loud. I never found out what was wrong
but instead used the build in DVK on the rig when calling CQ.
Due to my DVK problems I would estimate that 2% of my QSOs were running and the
rest S&P.
Yet another problem was on 10/15/20 - lots of stations reported me being very
very strong in signal but having crap modulation. On the other hand there was
alot of stations on the lower bands who forgot their normal fiveninefourteen or
fivenineonesix and actually told me "wow, your banging" or "Magnus your +50 in
spain". I sometimes had to turn down my power or even shut of my amp to get
through a pile-up. I dont think there was anything wrong with the amp, instead
I think I somehow got HF in my station due to the antennas for 10/15 and 20
being on the house or right next to it.
I drove home my YL spouce on Sunday afternoon and about half way back popping
my stereo loud I had a feeling the car was very swurvy. After some 5Km I
started to feel some strange smell and I thought I heard some strange noise.
Turning of the stereo I heard a strange BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG coming from
the rear of my car so I turned in on a side road and went out to inspect. Well
was my rear left tire very broken and even smoking a bit or what? I felt it
with my fingertip and actually got a small 3rd degree burn. I lost some time
changing tires due to those stupid original scissor jackers and how about the
lock bolts.
Something about the bands:
10m good: I actually worked a new country on 10m getting me only 4 from 5BDXCC.
There were openings to Asia, Africa, SA as well as most parts of Europe.
10m bad: Called on stations in the following countries with a full KW but even
though the may not have had anyone calling back to them they did'nt hear me:
Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Colombia, Aruba, Bonaire, US
Virgin, South Africa, Gambia, Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, UAE and more. Maybee
I should by one of thos cheap 4el-CB beams and tune it for 10m.
15m good: Some nice openings, I guess it is always like that but just bad
activation. Actually worked more on 15m then 20m. Worked 2 new band countries.
15m bad: Missed alot ones just like on 10m.
20m good: Seemed to have quite a good path to USA/Canada, everyone I called
came right back to me. Worked 3 new band countries.
20m bad: This vertical was doing real good towards W and SE but had to yell my
lungs soar to even work France or Spain. Maybee leaning too much and being a
vertidip it´s one and only radial should have gone straight down instead of
leaning a bit towards NW.
40m good: Too beat this antenna I have to put up a beam! There was no stations
pile-up that I could'nt break in max 2 calls. Worked a whole 9 new band
countries. Really nice conditions on sunday morning with ZL booming in over
USA.
80m good: In comparisson the 80m antenna works great but it could use some more
radials. Very happy to work C50C in Gambia on 80m as well as 4U1WRC in ITU
Geneva. That was my only 2 new countries on 80m. Thought I would get HV on 80m
but they never turned up when I was on the band.
160m good: Worked 7 new band countries on 160m excluding that I actually worked
my first JA on topband testing the antenna a few hours before the start of the
contest. I am now 3/4 from having QSOs enough to claim cards to a DXCC.
The band was very very very crowded and it was sometimes extremely difficult to
hear the week DX trough lots of QRM. Some nice ones 1A3A Sovereign order of
Malta, AO8A in Canary Islands, EA6LP in Balearic Isl was a new, EK0B in
Armenia, P3F in Cyprus, YZ8A and a few Canadians.
40/80/160m bad: If only I could hear all I wanted to work. I heard several
stations in the West Indies and SA on topband but could never call in between
the side QRM because I would never be able to hear if the came back. Also
missed C50C and a ZS station like that. Was looking for HV alot on topband but
when those times happend they were spotted I could never hear them.
Most funniest episode:
I got through to HC8N in Galapagos and the said "Thanx for multiplier, can you
go on 80m we´re on 3720". A while later I call them on 80m and they thank for
the multiplier and ask me "Can you go on 40?", I told them that I allready
worked them on 40m and was asked to go on 80m wheroff they reply, "Oh yea
How´bout 160?"
Lessons learned:
1. Get my high band antennas away from the cabin to reduce HF/RF problems.
2. It seems other stations heard me better on the low bands. I need to:
2.1 Get a filter (have for CQWW CW) for SSB.
2.2 Put up beverages to null out my EU friends so that I can hear the DX.
Some thing for NA stations to think about:
Not all European countries have recieved more allocation on 40m above 7100.
You still need to listen below 7100 to get among others SM in the log on 40m.
That be all!
CU in CQWW-CW
73 de Magnus SM6WET
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