[3830] CQWW CW OP4K M/S HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: OP4K
Operator(s): ON4JZ - ON4FG - OM5UM - ON5TN
Station: OP4K

Class: M/S HP
QTH: Antwerp
Operating Time (hrs): 48

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:  285    12       48
   80:  771    21       77
   40:  708    31      110
   20: 1088    31       97
   15:  132    19       46
   10:    0     0        0
------------------------------
Total: 2984   114      378  Total Score = 2,679,924

Club: ACC Antwerp Contest Club

Comments:

We all were very happy to be invited by Joe ON4JZ (OP4K) for the CQ WW CW
contest. The small team of 4 operators (ON4FG – Stefaan, ON4JZ – Joe, ON5UM
– Jim, ON5TN – Karel) decided to give it a go in the M/S section. Due to no
space for a second set of antennas to do decent multiplier chasing there is no
alternative for now in the multi section.
We are thinking about building smaller antennas on a lower and partly screened
roof as well as the necessary filters for the multiplier station.

For now we have to settle with the big OptiBeam OB18-6 @ 50m for 40 up to 10m
and an inverted Vee also @ 50m apex perpendicular on USA for 80m. 160m always
turned out to be the most difficult band to achieve even for some small
results. But as I am retired and not living far from Joe I had the possibility
to visit several times in the past months Joe’s QTH to study the terrain and
come up with a valuable solution to the 160m problem. Joe was getting the
permissions from the neighbors to stretch some long DYNEEMA “rope” from the
top of the tower @50m to a distant point and so we ended up with a vertical
space of 26,5m @ 8m over ground. A top loaded (T) vertical was build with DX
Wire and finished with only 1 radial (37m long). After some tune and prune we
had the antenna resonating on 1830 kHz with an SWR of 1.5/1 @ feed point. This
value turned out to be very acceptable as the “flattening” line of coax was
more than 80m long to reach the radio. SWR @ Fres was 1.1/1 .Great. But we knew
that the only problem would be the screen to the Southern 150°. This proved to
be correct as we did not work many stations from Africa. Even 4L0A did not get
in the log. So, maybe we will have to find a solution for this missing part in
the future but then we are talking about crossing a large avenue. Most probably
this will be not feasible.

All things set in time we had some spare time left to look into some future
projects and there are many in the books now.

We started on 40m and stayed there for 2 hours until we moved to 160m to check
out the new aerial and it proved to be much better than the previous ¼ wave
sloping.
Now we could at least make some nice runs and soon the qso total was over 150.
So, time to go to 80m and check it out. There also things went well and soon
after switching back and forth between the low bands we had our sunrise that
took us to20m. Maybe we could have done some more stateside runs into the
sunlight hours on 40m. First hours on Saturday were on 20m, switching to 15m
but signals were rather weak and runs were 
difficult .Switching operators was very smooth and we all had a lot of fun. It
turned out that 20m would be the band to stay on most of the time on Saturday
and forget about 10m. No signals were heard there, strange!

The 20m band closed very early Saturday evening and we found ourselves fighting
for a frequency on 40m already at 17.25 UTC. This would continue for the rest of
the weekend as it seemed that for many 40m was the best band to open and close
the daylight. Many multipliers were available but we missed a lot of them due
to good runs and no second station available.

Night time came and we switched between 40 and 80m before going to 160m at
midnight UTC. Until I was relieved by Karel ON5TN I had one of the most
difficult shifts in my whole contesting career. Running the station was very
difficult between 00.00 UTC and 03.50 UTC. Still don’t know why but it really
didn’t take off.

Some good runs followed on 40 and 80m before going to 20m for the rest of the
day. No visits to 15 or 10m on Sunday. It was not worth the effort.

OP4K ended its operation on the low bands but unfortunately the 3000 qso target
was not reached as we fell 16 qso’s short. The multiplier counter stopped at
492 and so we knew that a big score was not for this time.

The whole team was feeling happy with the score and with another nice
experience amongst friends. 
Now it’s time for more new stuff. Spring 2009 will tell.

Thank you all for the Qso’s and we hope you all did well. Of course we are
sorry for those who tried hard to be in our log but unsuccessfully. 
Thank you again Joe and your wonderful parents for the hospitality.

Best 73 and Happy Holidays,

ON5UM / OP5T on behalf of the OP4K team

QSL ok via bureau via ON4JZ or if you prefer direct, see QRZ.com or
www.on4jz.be


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