[3830] CQWW CW CT9M(DL2CC) SOAB(A) HP

[frank at grossmann.com]

                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: CT9M
Operator(s): DL2CC
Station: CT9M

Class: SOAB(A) HP
QTH: 
Operating Time (hrs): 

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:   59    11       39
   80:  326    18       80
   40: 1216    32      110
   20: 1076    35      125
   15:  919    33      131
   10: 1673    32      123
------------------------------
Total: 5269   161      608  Total Score = 12,026,391

Club: Rhein Ruhr DX Association

Comments:

RIG/QTH:
A hill on Madeira island, in the south east corner. A lot of times the shack,
which is a forrest guard post, is in the clouds.
Radio A:  FT1000MP + AL1500
Radio B: TS870 + AL1500 (hardly used the second radio as I didn't have a good
SO2R switching system)
Dipoles for 160/80/40, 4 el. monoband yagi for 20, triband 3-el for 10/15/10.
Good news for the CQWW committee: No simultanious transmitting on two QRGs at
the same time possible. Even one linear was too much for the available power
line. 1000 Watts output maximum. The room light was like being in a
discotheque.

Hosts:
Luckily my hosts - CT3EE, CT3DL, CT3IA, CT3EN, CT3BD, CT3KU - don't know CW very
well. So they go through this immense effort of hosting the CQ WWDX CW for me in
a fieldday style operation. Thanks to those fabulous men!

Competition:
With 4 active contest stations on the island (CT9L, CT3EE, CT3KN and CT9M), the
competition was higher than it has ever been.

Low bands:
160m and 80m were tough. I called lots of people on 160m with about 50% of them
not hearing me. I couldn't even work zone 16!
Only some people who are known for their good low band reception heard me
anyway.
Why is that?
A) Are 1000 Watts are not enough anymore? 
B) Wrong TX antenna? I wonder how a good vertical antenna would have performed
for transmitting. 
However, I always thought that in general the signal strength at the other side
follows the reception signal strength on my side.
The 160m dipole was certainly high enough to not radiate everyting into the
ground.

Contest:
160m: It was sometimes tough to call others with so many people calling over the
DX station to work me as a mult.
HC8N 160m op must have been really exhausted yesterday evening. Had to call him
for a long time and he insisted calling me CT8M instead of CT9M... and I had
worked HC8N on the 5 other bands by then...
FM5GU and AA6TT: good choice of your bands, both loud, FM5GU was S9!

40m: Never heard the band so full up to 7100. This makes me wonder if ever all
IARU zones will have the same frequency allocation. 

20m: Our preparations were such that we guessed that 20m will be a very
important band with USA being open all night - thus we had a monoband yagi for
20m and no yagi for 40m. Bad idea. Only SA during the night. 
Some strange conditions on the bands. How about a 20m opening to JA 2.5 hours
before sunrise with a strange direction of east (should be about 20 deg. for JA
short path) - the magic stopped 25 minutes later within seconds.

15m: condition wise the best band, most countries with least effort worked
there. I guess everybody is so happy about 10m being still open that one forgets
that 15m is a hot band!

Some antenna problems:
Before the contest, the big Titanex vertical broke in an attempt to pull it
up.
On Sunday evening, just after 15m and 10m died to EU and NA, a hurricane
strenght storm visited our QTH and the crank up tower fell on the shack
building. Luckily that tower with the triband 3-element was only needed for
exactly those two bands.
My hosts had a tow away truck come at 00Z after the contest to pull it straight
and crank it down. At 2Z monday morning I left the scene when I started seing
strange things and feeling more like a ghost than a human being.
Ever had this: After staring 48 hours into a computer screen my 3D vision was
strange. I saw a white mark on the street and I actually thought it was
something sticking out about to hit the car!
I had a real physical problem this contest. Quite a few times I was so tired
that I forgot about being in a QSO in the middle of the QSO. I mean I looked at
the screen and saw a callsign in the callsign field and saw the radio
transmitting the CQ sequence. Sorry to those people!
I'll go for some drugs next time. Doesn't seem to be outruled. Pse anybody give
me the name of a working drug commercially produced.

Multiplier moving:
Some M/M and M/2 guys moved me from one band to the other without communicating
the potential caller to the other operator. I have a favor to ask for those
guys: If you convince a DX to move, inform the operator which is on the other
band. It was frustrating to be moved by one M/2 to 160m and I then I couldn't
get through the pile up on the other band and the guy never called for me.

73!
Frank


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