ARRL DX Contest, CW - 2021
Call: PJ2T
Operator(s): KB7Q K8ND W0CG
Station: PJ2T
Class: M/S HP
QTH: Curacao
Operating Time (hrs): 35
Remote Operation
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 387 51
80: 566 53
40: 971 57
20: 1148 57
15: 1336 56
10: 518 42
-------------------
Total: 4926 316 Total Score = 4,666,056
Club: CCC
Comments:
PJ2T is back.
It’s just short of a full calendar year since any of us in the PJ2T club have
been to Curacao. Thanks to my second vaccine shot, and to Curacao’s excellent
control of the virus, we were finally able to arrange a return trip. Dorothy and
I got here Monday night, February 15 after a hurriedly arranged trip, and jumped
into the mess, managing to get the QTH un-mothballed, equipment out and
functioning, and antennas radiating in short order. This task was all made
easier by the magnificent and diligent job KB7Q and Joyce did of mothballing the
station last March for what none of us ever imagined would be an entire calendar
year.
HUGE THANKS to Gene (KB7Q) and Jeff (K8ND) who jumped in with me to operate PJ2T
as a Multi/Single. We arranged this literally at the last minute, two hours
before the contest, via a Zoom meeting. Gene and Jeff participated in the M/S
via remote from Bozeman and Columbus, and I was on site at Signal Point,
Curacao. There was no plan, no operating schedule, and no competitive goal.
After such a long time away we just wanted to get something, anything, on the
air and raise the PJ2T flag.
Gene started at 0000Z on 40 via the remote. Following that, the three of us
negotiated shift by shift via Slack chat, taking time on the air as our
schedules allowed. I did all of 160 and 10 and some 20 from this shack, Gene did
80 and 40 and some 20 remotely, and Jeff mainly 15 with some 20 mixed in. It all
worked out. Neither Jeff nor Gene had planned to devote time to the contest
this weekend, and I’m extremely grateful to them for rearranging their
schedules to be able to put in time on the air via the remote. We certainly were
not on for all 48 hours, and did not plan to be, but we felt that under the
circumstances any showing would be a good showing, and that line of thinking
propelled us through the weekend.
Conditions were phenomenal. Signals were crazy loud down here all weekend on all
bands, and 160 was particularly quiet the first night, as I gloried in the sound
of radio noise and CW, being on the air for the first time in a year. I have
zero station at our restricted condo at home in Idaho, so for 12 months I had
not even heard even a dead band, much less real signals, so this weekend was
like an elixir for me. Apologies to those of you who had to be patient with me
fumbling a bit here and there in this last-minute unpracticed operation, but
after a couple of hours it all felt great again. And also thanks for your
patience with blips in the remote operation. Gene and Jeff did the heroic part,
dealing with data dropouts and slowdowns here and there, but hung in. We may
have sounded slow, but it was a big pileup on nearly every “over,” and
grabbing a callsign out of a wall of 20 over 9 signals is a chore, pleasant a
problem as that is. It’s a huge help if you call just a tad off frequency.
Grab that XIT knob and tweak it a bit, and that will always get you through a
pile a bit faster. In contrast to Jeff and Gene on the remote, shoveling snow,
it was much easier for me being on site here, and the 85 degrees and bright
turquoise ocean water outside the shack window were good inspiration.
A big thanks to the membership of the PJ2T CCC radio club, who stepped up to
support the PJ2T QTH in this horrible year of the pandemic, providing funds in
exchange for…, well, nothing, except the hope that we would eventually get
back on the air. Eventually came this weekend, finally.
I thank my partner Dorothy Dahlgren for her incredible unwavering support,
patience, and willingness to work hard, get dirty, and do ANYthing that is
needed to put PJ2T on the air. She is now retired from her 38 year career as a
museum director, making me the luckiest guy alive to now be able to spend
extended periods of time together with her on this island, at home in Idaho and
Ohio, and on our bicycles as we venture out to ride the world.
And finally special thanks to KB7Q and his great wizardry in bringing remote ops
technology to PJ2T, and for cobbling together last night three uncoordinated
logs from the weekend, producing in just a few minutes a finished and submitted
Multi/Single log, 4926 QSOs, 316 multipliers, 4,666,056 points claimed score.
We are thrilled to again be handing out the PJ2 multiplier, and hope to be on
the air in a big way for many years to come. As we do so, we will be ever
mindful of our wonderful CCC friends whom we have lost in this terrible past 12
months: Mal (NP2L), Keith (WA9S), and Marty (K2PLF). All three of them were
deeply involved with PJ2T for many, many years, were close personal friends and
like family to all of us, and we miss them desperately. As I sat up late by
myself at Signal Point making contest contacts on 160 in the wee hours, I could
not help but stare around the shack at the empty chairs where they had all put
in so much time for so many years, hoping that in some way their spirits were
still there in that dark shack with me.
Thanks to all of our thousands of friends worldwide for the QSOs. We will see
you again in ARRL SSB, that team of Florida contesters to be led by N1ZZ,
founder of West Mountain Radio.
73 from all of the CCC gang,
- Geoff, W0CG, PJ2DX
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