CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW
Call: ON5KQ
Operator(s): ON5KQ
Station: ON5KQ
Class: SOSB/40 HP
QTH: jo11of
Operating Time (hrs): 16
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 0 0 0
80: 0 0 0
40: 749 36 123
20: 0 0 0
15: 0 0 0
10: 0 0 0
------------------------------
Total: 749 36 123 Total Score = 211,470
Club: Rhein Ruhr DX Association
Comments:
This year the contest went really wrong from the beginning. Planning to take
enough sleep before the contest to start really fresh, instead I got a phone
call on early Friday morning, that the antenna's in my remote location (1hour
from my home) where gone - the SMS message only mentioned, that instead a
4square,there were no verticals anymore !!!
So - no time for shopping for the contest weekend food... no time to sleep. I
hurried to my contest place and found the verticals damaged on the ground...
As the week before, was very busy, I had no time to check the contest location
before the contest,but did not expect that scale of damage...
I had just time over the whole day before the contest to set-up the vertical
elements again, but no time to re-align anything - as a result the SWR in the
various antenna direction, was very different and my main important direction
had SWR over 2... almost dangerous for the amplifier...
It was already dark however and I could only do some quick and dirty tricks
with a LC-circuit in front of the current/phasing distribution unit, so I keep
the SWR down to acceptable levels... abosolutely no tuning of the elements was
possible!
To compensate any bad influence, I thought at least to keep working with more
radials, as I found most radials not connected anymore properly. I heard later,
that there has been a very local tornado in Zeebrugge just a few days ago, which
might have made the incredible damage. My verticals are secured with 130kg of
water weight plus additional steel, to prevent them blowing away..
I found the water cans empty somewhere and the verticals were blown down the
roof. I was very very lucky, that all elements could be re-used...
So, when the contest started, I was very very tired before the contest even
started...
I changed my strategy to search and pounce the complete first night on 40m. The
band was very very busy and with not very good condx it would be impossible to
establish a qrg against the strong south Europeans...
Search & Pounce worked great - unfortunately I was too tired to keep operation
in the early morning, so went to sleep before even sunrise at 7h local and get
up for operation from 11:15h local again...
Surprising I could work W6/KH6 and other pacific that late at almost midday
from EU !!!
During the day not so much DX could be done... HL/BV/XW1B and other were
rediculous busy with Russian/Japan pile-ups. Also more eastern Europe seem to
have good propagation to Asia... no way to come through quickly from western
Belgium... so I didn't even try seriously.
Unfortunately condx even went down further the evening, so I missed these
normally rather easy multi's...
After 16hours of operation (mostly during the first day at daylight hours) I
closed the station at arround 22h UTC.
I am very pleased with the multi result - the station worked extremly well to
the west in the first night where I could break any pile-up I heard very very
quickly. Increadible, as I only use vertical... no large stacked Yagi's...
May be fresh radials (especially to western directions) helped...
I plan to quickly renew the radial system to eastern directions as well...
QSO numbers are low, but an effect of lots of S&P and my just avarage CW
practice... need to do more!
I feel my station can be a real winner on 40m to compete with almost any other
40m set-up in the area - if the operator is just good enough - this time I was
out of energy from the beginning !
Thanks for all stations who called me - please visit my website for foto's and
further details: www.on5kq.be
Ulli, ON5KQ
RIG: FT-1000MP
Ant: 4ele vertical, 10m spacing, 120degree crossfire phasing (as W8JI design)
Amp: homebrew, 1kW out
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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