[3830] VK4EMM WPX SSB 1999 SOAB HP

[John]

                  CQ WORLD WIDE PREFIX CONTEST -- 1999


      Call: VK4EMM                   Country:  Australia
      Mode: SSB                      Category: Single Operator
                                     Operation: 36 hours

      BAND     QSO   QSO PTS  PTS/Q PREFIXES


      160        0        0   0.0        0
       80        7       27   3.9        1
       40      298     1724   5.8       69
       20      425     1247   2.9      242
       15      306      862   2.8      122
       10      603     1763   2.9      187
     --------------------------------------

     Totals   1639     5623   3.4      621  =   3,491,883


All reports sent were 59(9), unless otherwise noted.

Equipment Description:

Kenwood TS850 & TS570
10m 4 element Yagi
15m 3 element Yagi
20m 3 element Yagi
40m 6 element wire array to NA, 3 element quad to Europe & Asia
80m 3 element wire array to NA, 3 element vertical to Europe & Asia

Club Affiliation: Pacific Rim Contest Club

Soap Box Comments

I was happy to hand out a few numbers from VK4.

I must congratulate the European stations who worked me during a good run on
20m. Their discipline and courtesy was excellent.

Australia is an interesting and challenging place to operate in the WPX. We
have a relatively small Amateur population, nine prefixes, a large land
mass, and belong to the large continent of Oceania. For the most part
Australia is geographically placed outside the high traffic triangle: North
America, Europe / Asia, and Japan. When the aim is to work prefixes, there
is virtually no incentive for anyone to turn their beam away from the
triangle to look for VK or ZL. I spent the best part of 36 hours trying to
pounce onto the back or side of someones beam. It was a real delight when
anyone went to the effort of turning their beam.

You only need to operate from VK to be sure that there is no such thing as a
level playing field.

I sometimes wonder how things would be if we had a handicap event. Imagine
how attractive VK and ZL would become if the handicaps were based on the
same ratio as the proportion of places allocated to WRTC 2000. At the other
end of the scale EU would attract the biggest handicap.

Best regards,

John Loftus
VK4EMM



--
FAQ on WWW:               http://www.contesting.com/3830faq.html
Submissions:              3830 at contesting.com
Administrative requests:  3830-REQUEST at contesting.com
Problems:                 owner-3830 at contesting.com