I had the great privilege of being invited to operate at OH5NQ in
celebration of Peter's 80th birthday. I've known Peter since 1972, and
it was with his assistance that I lived in Finland in 1976. As the
station is not normally set up for M/M, the team, especially Timo OG9X
and Juha OH6XX did a tremendous amount of work setting up before the
contest. We put up the new tower and beam for 10 meters in the rain
Friday, but at least it was a bit warmer than during the contest. OH5TS
spent a long time up on the tower in the rain.
Needless to say, conditions in OH were even worse than they were almost
everywhere else. There was a "wall" between OH5 and NA, so there were
lots of 1 point QSO's with EU, and even those were tough. The team made
a great effort, though, and all had a great time.
73,
Scott K9MA
--------------
Here's the write-up from OH6XX:
CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB
Call: OH5NQ
Operator(s): K1RX K9MA OG9X OH1RX OH2BO OH5CZ OH5KS OH5LF OH5NQ OH5TS
OH6HZH OH6MW OH6XX OH7CW
Station: OH5NQ
Class: M/M HP
QTH:Mustila
Operating Time (hrs): 48
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 477 8 54
80: 544 18 74
40: 1599 34 122
20: 1464 39 141
15: 461 31 101
10: 123 13 42
------------------------------
Total: 4668 143 534 Total Score = 4,370,035
Club: Contest Club Finland
Comments:
Peter OH5NQ will turn 80 years of age later in the year and his
anniversary of 65 years in ham radio is this year. Hence the OH5Z group
decided to arrange
something memorable for him. A decision was made to arrange a big crew of
Peter's friends to run CQWW SSB, his favorite contest, in the
Multi/Multi category.
Invitations were sent out and quite quickly we had the operator list
mentioned
above. Both US operators have been friends of Peter for 30-40 years and they
didn't think twice when they got the invite. Finnish operators are OH5Z
regulars in addition to some top Finnish operators and Peter's friends.
During the summer and autumn new receive antennas, a new inband tower and
hundreds of meters of new coax were installed. On Thursday morning
before the
contest, a rented container which would act as a 80 and 160m ham shack
arrived and
a few hours later OH5TS brought a rented generator with him. We needed
to rent both
the shack and generator since OH5Z is not designed for M/M; it's designed to
house either M/S or M/2 crews. Also the capacity of the AC mains is not
enough for six high
power stations transmitting at the same time. During Friday yet another
15m high
tower was put up for a 10m 5-el beam which could be turned independently
of other
antennas, since often during low sun spots 10m QSO's come from odd scatter
directions.
The whole week before the contest we were watching solar indices and
started to
fear the worst. K-index was hovering in 6's and 7's and in Finland that
means
that it's better to shut down radios and go out to look for visible aurora
borealis. As everyone knows, conditions were as bad as expected when two
massive
coronal holes face the earth.
At 00Z the station was almost ready, yet again the contest started 2
hours too
early, but all the stations which had a band open were at least making
QSO's. 10m
and 15m stations were ready and alive just before the bands started to open.
The 160m station operators, OH1RX and OH2BO, really worked hard for
every QSO
and multiplier. The new beverages for RX really paid off since on the
transmit vertical
the noise was S9+ throughout the contest.
The 80m station, operated by OG9X, OH5LF, and OH6XX, was really
struggling in the
beginning. Even S9+30 Germans were CQing at our face. We just couldn't break
the aurora belt and we felt that the transmit antenna was broken. It
still could be
broken, but working a couple zone 3 stations on Saturday afternoon
greyline tells
another story. The same noise that was on 160m was affecting 80m also
and basically
the whole weekend we listened with beverages. A bit of a disappointing
result, but that
was the best we could do this time.
The 40m team was a mix of youth and experience. OH5CZ (age 15) and OH6MW
(CQWW
winner in the PJ9A/PJ9W era), helped by other operators, pulled 40m
through nicely. There
weren't big NA or JA runs, but that is SSB contesting on 40m from OH.
20m was birthday hero himself OH5NQ, with OH5KS, OH7CW and K1RX. They
did a good job
in multipliers, though conditions didn't allow them to make more QSO's.
As on
40m, big JA and NA runs were absent, although on Sunday night Mark K1RX
finally
got to enjoy a bit of a NA run and work his buddies from other side of the
pond.
15m was mainly operated by OH5TS and K9MA. again helped by other
operators. 15m was
somewhat open but nothing spectacular. Still DXCC in one contest with
low sun
spots is really nice.
10m had only one dedicated operator, OH6HZH, but his pain was shared by
others.
The new 5el beam was really an asset, as we could point it in the odd
directions
were we anticipated the signals would come from. 42 countries is nothing
special but quite OK anyway.
We used K3, TS-590, FT5000, and FT2000 rigs, altogether eight in total
with a variety of amplifiers. The 20m and 40m stations had two operating
positions with RUN and SUPPORT possibilities and the other four bands
were single
radio positions.
After putting up the M/M station and getting everything pretty much
working it was really
rewarding seeing Peter enjoy his "birthday present", have chats with
his friends, and see all the other operators with happy faces. Even the
worst
band conditions in everyone's memories couldn't kill the fun.
We will post pictures to OH5Z facebook page shortly.
Thank you everyone for QSO's and birthday wishes to Peter. Each and
every was
passed to him either over Win-Test chat or verbally. OH5Z will return in
CQWW
CW in either M/S or M/2 category.
73,
Juha OH6XX on behalf of OH5NQ/OH5Z crew.
--
Scott K9MA
k9ma@sdellington.us
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