CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB
Call: YP9W
Operator(s): YO9GZU
Station: YO9WF
Class: SOAB(A) HP
QTH: Buciumeni
Operating Time (hrs): 43
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 100 7 36
80: 301 12 56
40: 897 27 97
20: 1501 37 118
15: 1368 34 120
10: 1211 36 123
------------------------------
Total: 5378 153 550 Total Score = 7,591,697
Club: Rhein Ruhr DX Association
Comments:
Due to a very busy period (the entire week I had several exams to get my board
license as a specialist doc), I started this one without enough motivation and
very tired too, both physically and psychically. But Ionut YO9WF did again his
best in order to make the station available and to prepare a good setup. This
included several tower climbings to fix the broken balun of OB17-4 and driving
few times to the service (about 100 km away) with one damaged FT1000MPs to get
it available for the contest. He had recently redesigned his shack after moving
it to the top floor of the house, and was never properly tested in serious
contest conditions, but his enthusiasm and struggle grounded me to try a
serious effort, and his continuous support was the reason to keep moving even
if I encountered different problems before and during the contest.
Besides unpredictable Murphy visits that pissed me off like never before, a
health issue affects my right ear since September. I suffer from an otitis
media with serous effusion, giving me a 45dB hearing loss and strong tinnitus
(source of endogenous QRM hi...) and currently I am in the wait and see period
under medical treatment before surgery (miringotomy). It was quite strange to
do SO2R with a single ear and it has taken me a while to get used with it.
On Murphy's checklist I must count the followings:
- a power outage on Saturday morning which lasted for about half hour;
- unsolved RF problems inside the shack which affected the internet connection,
and most of the time I needed to manually connect and load a bunch of spots from
time to time to feed the bandmap;
- an unsolved problem with the previously broken transceiver which affected its
transmission, so I could benefit from the second radio only for intermittent
periods counting less than 50% of the total operating time;
- a broken amplifier during Sunday afternoon when 10m and 15m were fully
productive with constant rate of 200q/h, losing another hour and a half to
check the problem and replace it with the other one from the second radio;
- a lightning storm on Sunday night that induced heavy 59+20 QRN on all the
bands, making it impossible to me to run for the last 4 hour of the contest, so
I ended up doing only S&P and logging the stations with strong signals.
Concerning the operating times, although it was originally scheduled after 24
operating hours, I needed a sleeping break only after 20 hours when I already
started to suffer from concentration loss. It lasted for about 3 hours instead
of 1.5 hours as planned, but it greatly improved my ability to perform and my
psychical tonus. All in all, at the end I concluded that I would probably not
be able to break the last year claimed score of 8.9 mil pts, even if anything
would have gone smoothly and I would have done 5700-6000 Q's as planned.
I must thank Ionut for his technical and logistical support, and its family too
for their care (very good food as always) and for tolerating me!
Best 73
Tibi YO9GZU
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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