[3830] CQ160 CW VY2ZM Multi-Op HP

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                    CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW

Call: VY2ZM
Operator(s): K1ZM, WW2Y, K2WI, VK6VZ
Station: VY2ZM

Class: Multi-Op HP
QTH: Prince Edward Island
Operating Time (hrs): 30

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 950  State/Prov = 55  Countries = 66  Total Score = 796,625

Club: Men from MARS

Comments:

G'day

Most sensible creatures on this Earth fly south when winter comes, but team
VY2ZM do the reverse for the CQ 160 CW.  Team leader Jeff K1ZM and mainstays
Peter WW2Y and Rob K2WI at least have the excuse they are only travelling  a
little bit north, but in my case I flew all the way from Perth, Western
Australia to join them for the 2004 event.

I guess some would say that being upside-down all the time tends to scramble the
brain.

The day I left it was 39 degrees Celcius in my home town, with a burning-hot Sun
in a clear blue sky.  When I reached Charlottetown in Price Edward Island, it
was also 39 degrees (but with a minus prefix before it), blowing a blizzard and
Jeff answered my telephone call to say that I had arrived with the words "Hi,
this is Moscow Airport".

After Jeff had also rounded up Peter and Rob (whose plane had actually been able
to land at Charlottetown - mine gave up about 100 miles west of PEI and I had
been bussed in), we proceeded to a local eatery to fill ourselves up before
facing the long drive/hike to the contest QTH.  This proved a good idea, as
Peter and I later ended up hiking a mile across open fields that night in one to
two feet of snow, after the group's ski-doo ended up burying itself in a serious
snow drift.  

This also meant Jeff and Rob had to play at being huskies, hauling a sled with
our bags on it several hundred feet through deep snow to reach the VY2ZM QTH.

The next day, the wind had dropped and the snow had stopped, but there were
drifts up to three feet deep and we still needed to put up one Beverage. 
Luckily for me, Jeff had completed most of the antenna preparations earlier in
the week....  

On went the ski-suits again and the four of us made short work of the Beverage,
although Jeff had a hard job reaching the terminating resistor which was buried
in a three-foot high snow drift.  Usually, at VK6VZ, my main problem with
putting up a Bev' for the CQ 160 is avoiding sunstroke.

Later that day, as we were making the final station arrangements, a search on
the Internet revealed the CQ 160 was likely to feel the effects of a solar
Coronal Mass.  However, as we were having so much fun in the snow and making up
stupid phonetics for each other's callsigns, spirits remained high.

After a slow start to the contest and a relative lack of European signals at a
time when they are usually booming in, Team VY2ZM gritted its collective teeth
for the long haul.  Stations further to the south seemed less affected by the
poor conditions, but we were still having fun and Jeff, Peter and Rob were
working stuff as fast as the conditions allowed, with me filling in the odd
gap.

At the end of the first night, we had around 300 Europeans in the log - not bad,
but well down from previous years.  Propagation for us into the Indian
Ocean/Pacific/Japan had been non-existent. We ate, slept for a while and psyched
ourself up for the second 'run'.

Once again, the European signals trickled through rather than flooded in, and
lots of time was spent seeking out multipliers in order to maximise our score. 
The European opening cut out even earlier than the previous night, making us
work hard at compiling USA/VE call areas.

When morning came around, the log looked well-built rather than fat, so we
decided to try and operate during some of the daylight hours in order to make
the best of the time left.  As sunset came and went, the European signals were
heard earlier than on the previous two nights - unfortunately, a amount of QRN
and QSB came in with them, making copy very difficult.

However, spirits were still high and we finished the contest laughing - at our
collective desperate attempt to pull one very hard-working and persistent
Italian station out of the 'bangs' and 'pops' of QRN that were filling the band
in PEI.  Unfortunately, his callsign was full of 'dits' and our ears were shot
with the QRN.

Our estimated final score was 796,625 points - containing around 950 QSOs, 55
USA/VE sections and 66 DX multipliers.  While conditions were poorer than we
hoped, we had much more fun than we thought possible and all vowed to do the CQ
160 together again.

A special thanks to host Jeff K1ZM, Rob K2WI and Peter WW2Y for letting this
Aussie onto the team and glad you blokes enjoyed the Vegemite.

Vy 73

Steve VK6VZ/VY2

PS VY2ZM was powered by Vegemite sandwiches in the CQ 160 CW 2004


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