[3830] WAE CW F6KAR Single Op HP

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                    WAE DX Contest, CW

Call: F6KAR
Operator(s): F5VIH/SV3SJ, F6IFY, F6IRF
Station: F6KAR

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: JN36AF
Operating Time (hrs): 48

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  QTCs  Mults
-------------------------
   80:   86     2    21
   40:  381   367    56
   20:  390   714    64
   15:  175   218    39
   10:   52    24    19
-------------------------
Total: 1084  1325   496  Total Score = 1,194,864

Club: CARC

Comments:

Station
High bands station: IC756 + Ten-tec Titan 
Low bands station: IC756pro3 + Ten-Tec Titan
Ants: 
80m: shunt-fed tower and sloper 
40m: 40-2CD
20-15-10: KT34 and 3el ECO
RX ants: Unterminated 100m beverages NE/SW and NW/SE, K9AY loop 
Software: Win-test

Operators: 
Nico F5VIH/SV3SJ, Phil F6IFY, Pat F6IRF 

The Weather has been extremely bad all weekend, with frequent showers and low
temperatures (almost a CQWW-CW weather !)
With the Jura (8deg toward west horizon), our KT34 and a low 3el trap-yagi, we
could not expect to be really competitive on high bands, and this was confirmed
by the difficulties we experienced in several pile-ups. 
On low bands, it seems that we had a good signal but the WX strongly affected
our receiving performances, especially on 80m.

Anyway, those details apart it has been a great weekend, without major
technical problem, and we are more than happy with the score.

The conditions: Surprising! Based on the few days before, we did not expect 15m
to open toward states, not to mention 10m. The strong multiple hops E's, really
helped, resulting in 31 five-banders, 5 U.S call-areas on 10m and 7 on 15m.

The traffic: On a total of 44 DXCC entities worked, more than 2/3 of the QSO's
were achieved with NA. A few "interesting" entities were there. Just to mention
a few: 3W, 4K, 9K, 9M, 9V, A6, CN, FP, HP, VP9, P4, V31, VP8/h, VQ9...    

The activity: Obviously being on the Eu-side and working only DX stations can't
generate high hourly rates when you are at the bottom of the solar activity. 
Maybe the rules are still not yet understood, or is it the fact that north
hemisphere summer does not stimulate HF contesters but getting new stations to
work became quite a challenge on Sunday - we counted as much as 46mn between 2
consecutive QSO's... fortunately the QTC's were there ! On the other hand, it
was not too hard to find a clean frequency...

The QTC's: The world may also be divided in 2 by the ones who deal with QTC's
and the ones who don't !!! (revised version of the famous Clint Eastwood
sentence, in a Sergio Leone movie!)
OK I understand the casual participant only responding to CQ's, but it is quite
surprising to hear stations calling CQ-WAE, and refusing to send QTC's, even
when the rate gets very low... Not to mention the "?" (meaning : what are you
talking about ?) when you ask for QTC's ! A bit like running a KW in a
QRP-contest !
Apologies to the stations we annoyed with repeated "QTC?", but for a EU
competitor, the spontaneous offers are so rare, that there is no alternative
strategy to aggressive search...

It has been a great pleasure for me for me to join the CERN RC(*) team - my
first multi-op for quite some time - Thanks to all for the QSO's and QTC's and
to the DARC for organizing this nice event...

Pat F6IRF, On behalf of the team.

(*) CERN is the European Organization for Nuclear Research, the world's largest
particle physics center.
http://f6kar.web.cern.ch/f6kar/

Contest pictures and audio clips soon on
http://f6irf.blogspot.com/


Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/