[3830] WPX CW SY3M M/S HP

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                    CQWW WPX Contest, CW

Call: SY3M
Operator(s): SV3SJ, F6IRF
Station: SY3M

Class: M/S HP
QTH: NR Pilos, Peloponese
Operating Time (hrs): 48

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:   32
   80:  271
   40:  918
   20:  826
   15:  726
   10:  300
------------
Total: 3123  Prefixes = 839  Total Score = 5,250,462

Club: The rats terminators ;-)

Comments:

Band    QSOs    Pts  WPX
         1.8      32      71    7
         3.5     271     697   88
           7     918    2722  365
          14     876    1472  221
          21     726     912   95
          28     300     384   63
       Total    3123    6258  839

TRX: K3 + TT Titan, pro2 + AL1500
ANT: 2el SteppIR @9m, Ground-mounted vertical Half-Moxon (40m), 16m ground
mounted vertical (80/160), K9AY RX-loop and 120m beverage to JA.
MSC: N1MM, Microkeyers, laptops, ICE filters, 700m of wire, 250m of coaxial,
200m of rope and a lot of enthusiasm and energy to setup/dismantle all this !!!
 
My initial personnal plan was to go back to CN with some ambitions in the SOAB
category, but for some obscur administrative reason the licence never arrived.
On his side, Nico had already planned a trip to his home country... I could not
miss such an opportunity to go back to wonderful Greece, so we quickly
improvised something to be on the air; not to be competitive, but to take part,
which is the most important as says the Olympic games chart! (another famous
Greek/French joint venture !)
Among the difficulties to setup a all-bands M/S station from scratch in a
remote location, the first one was to rehabilitate a house, unnocupied by
humans for some 20 years (adopted by rats and mices and invaded by wild
vegetation); It took a few days to make the house usable, but we managed it...
The cohabitation with the dense rats population was not always easy, but they
finaly accepted to free-up some space for us (must say that we had to insist a
bit, using some powerful unfair arguments... the main problem for me with the
Greek rats, being that that they understand only Greek and they start working
at sunset until sunrise...).
Waiting for Nico to complete some "non-ham" obligations and beside some 6m and
peri-contest activity (about 800 Q's as SV3/F6IRF ), I started by installing my
16m multiband portable HB vertical, tested the week before in britanny. After a
few tests on the air, I started to think about some more efficient solution for
40m, which is key band in this contest. We needed something simple, that we
could setup quickly with the hardware we had (2 fiber 10m telescopic masts), so
after a few simulation sessions we decided to go for a vertical "half-moxon"
mainly for his broad horizontal pattern (a description will be published later
on my blog). Must say that the results overtook my expectations, the difference
with the vertical being obvious right from the first listening tests. It was
confirmed during the contest, as we did not get any problem to break the
pile-ups and get DX stations to call us. Obviously the weak band has been 20
meters, due to the low height and limited gain of the antenna, but we could not
do better for this time...
10m provided some nice openings, including to JA (most probably multi-hop E's)
and 15m a nice combination of E's and F2 propagation. 
At the end we are just short of multipliers to be "almost competitive"- we had
initialy planned DX-cluster through a VHF packet-link to Kalamata, but the
distance and terrain profile between Kalamata and Pilos area did not allow it
to work. We obviously also missed a second  antenna on the high bands - but we
did no expect them to be so productive and to say the truth we ended up short
of time and energy (the temperature on those days did not help) ! - Anyway, in
may still be a new Greek M/S record...
I really enjoyed those 2 weeks in this still preserved paradisiac wild area...
unfortunately not for long, as in many other places, the "beton" is about to
win (a large touristic ressort is already in construction, a Motorway is
scheduled and the promoters all around). A special mention  to the Greek local
people for their "way of life", sometime a bit annoying for a stranger, but so
nice at the end ! 
73's from Sunny Greece - Pat

PS: More to follow soon on http://f6irf.blogspot.com/ including a video


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