CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB
Call: ED5T
Operator(s): EA5DFV, EA5GIE, EA5GS, EA5KV, EA5ON, EA5UF, EB5TC
Station: EA5ELT
Class: M/S HP
QTH: Torrent
Operating Time (hrs): 48
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160:
80:
40:
20:
15:
10:
------------------------------
Total: 4932 171 654 Total Score = 8,928,150
Club: Torrent Contest Club
Comments:
This year ED5T has been participating in the beta testing of a new project from
the Murphy corp, known as MurphyPlus ©. In the past, traditional Murphy
attacks are easily recognizable and operators quickly set to work to combat
attacks and fix broken hardware and software. MurphyPlus however goes a step
further, making attacks less recognizable and therefore giving the man himself
time to sit back triumphantly and watch operators with puzzled looks on their
faces wondering what is going on. In our case, seeing that we werenâ??t going
to figure it out on our own, he chucked in a few traditional Murphs, which
would then lead us to discover why heâ??d been laughing himself silly all
weekend at our expense.
We had been wondering throughout the weekend why the propagation was so odd.
Most of us had been operating regularly in the weeks beforehand and were pretty
much au-fait with the way conditions were, so we started to wonder why we were
getting so many rapid QSBs and why we were so regularly getting beaten in the
pileups by other EA stations. There were so many pointers out there that with
hindsight, we should have been able to piece together the jigsaw and see what
was happening. Murphyâ??s first call was when the 80m bazooka all of a sudden
stopped working. We went crazy checking the switching box for the receive
antenna, checking all the connectors at the back, the six pack (which had just
had emergency surgery the day before after we found the tracks on the main
board had been corroded with some kind of acid), and finally at daylight Jose
EA5GS lowered the dipoles to find that the coax was split in several places. At
first we thought it was too much HV at the feedpoint but after studying a bit
further, looks like plain and simple chafing against the tower. So we made a
new standard wire dipole and stuck it back up. Second call was when the rotator
on T2, after giving several warnings, finally gave up, stuck at 180 degrees. And
it was at the beginning of the final hour, with EA5UF vainly trying to run on
40m, that EA5DFV sat listening to VY2MM on 20. â??Why is he 20 to 30 dB
stronger on the antenna that is fixed at 180º?â?? he asked. At that stage we
didnâ??t ask, I just went on 20m, found a clear frequency, and started calling
on the antenna I was receiving better on. In no time I had a nice pileup going
and managed more than 800.000 points in the final hour. I was so concentrated
on the running that the only moment I realized that the team were rolling
around in fits of laughter behind me was when they laughed so loud that they
started tripping the VOX. Upon finishing, I took off the cans and EA5DFV then
told me that the final hour had been the only hour in the whole contest that we
had been using an antenna that was pointing in the right direction! At some
stage in the preps, when we realized that we had to take the auto stub
switching off and manually put them on a T connector, the two tribander coaxes
got changed round on the six pakâ?¦.. try imagining it, you are running and
your mult partner starts turning what we both think is his beam and all of a
sudden your run dries up....
So, with the contest over, we looked at the score, and asked ourselves that if
we managed to work 150 countries on 10m with antennas in the wrong direction,
and all our running into the states off the side of the antenna, how we would
have done with the antennas pointed in the right direction?! And then, manic
laughter set in for a good quarter of an hour�� this year Mr. Murphy
screwed us well and proper!
In spite of everything, a really great fun weekend, loads of laughs, loads of
DX, and in principle, depending on how much we get cut, a decent score in spite
of our compass problem. Lots of participation in Spain this year and a nice
friendly competition between the different multi-op teams, anxiously awaiting
results from the other M/S teams but sure they will have beaten us hands down.
As usual the last paragraph is one of thanks: to all of you who called us, or
fished us out of the mud to give us a point or a mult, to our tech team who
work tirelessly and selflessly behind the scenes to make sure it all comes
together, to the council and the club for allowing us to use the premises, and
last but not least, to our families for shouldering our responsibilities for a
while so we can go have a weekend of pure unadulterated pleasure!
Hardware:
FT1000 + FT2000
2 x 1KW
2 x Optibeam 11-3
2 x 40m dipole
Bazookas for 80 and 160
RX antenna
ED5T runs N1MM software!
73 de EA5ON on behalf of the ED5T team
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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