[3830] CQWW SSB SV9CVY(DL6FBL) SOAB HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB

Call: SV9CVY
Operator(s): DL6FBL
Station: SV9CVY

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: 
Operating Time (hrs): 48

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:  283     9       56
   80:  621    17       76
   40: 1851    29      107
   20: 2233    35      124
   15: 1428    26      102
   10:  271     9       41
------------------------------
Total: 6687   125      506  Total Score = 6,982,015

Club: Bavarian Contest Club

Comments:

Kenwood TS-950SDX + PA

TX antennas:
* Optibeam OB17-4 @ 30m
* 3-ele Quad (10/15/20) fixed to JA/Asia @ 18m
* Force12 C31XR (10/15/20) fixed to EU/US @ 5m (!)
* Titanex V160HD (26.7m)
  (on the roof balcony with some radials hanging down in the garden)

RX antennas:
* 80m Moxon Loop @ 20m (useful) 
* K9AY Loop AYL-4 (useless)
* Two Beverages (only 60m long) to JA and EU/US (both useless) 

Win-Test 3.21

- - - - - 

I was lucky that my last year's CW strategy worked again this year
in SSB: running all Saturday like hell and catching up on multipliers
on Sunday without losing too much rate... This way I could squeeze
out most of the 10m and 15m openings into Central Europe on Saturday
(they were non-existing on Sunday)! After the first 24 hours I had
collected 4,455 QSOs, with ten hours of 200+ rates. Best clock hour
was 08z/Sat with 265 QSOs (15m EU with some JA/Asia).

Here is a brief summary of the first 24 hours:

I started on 40m with the Optibeam towards EU/USA, which is the same
direction. 7100-7200 kHz is not yet allowed in Greece, so it had to
be the old-style stuff "listening 72xx and this frequency". At 0345z
(a little late, sunrise is at 0437z) I went to 80m and picked up a
few guys until 0500z before I went back to 40m for another half hour.
At 0530z I went to 20 meters, and at 0620z to 15 meters. I found some
weak but useful JA propagation, and around 0730z the band opened up
to Central Europe giving me good rates (but mostly 1-pointers). 
At 0900z I went to 10m and found a weak, but steady opening to
Central Europe. In 100 minutes I worked 264 EUs (+3V8BB, D4C, ZS5NK).
Back on 15m EUs continued with scattered APACs (HS0ZDY, AH2R, 9M8Z,
YB/VK), before at 1117z K1LZ was the first NA with a loud signal.
A few minutes later the rest of the usual suspects showed up and I
had hopes for a hot afternoon on 15m. But besides a couple of loud
signals most stations were extremely weak. Combined with the very
bad noise situation at Mike's QTH (the S meter hangs at S5-7 on a
completely dead band) the rate was not very good. At 1200z I went
to 20m to enjoy some better signals, but the band was completely
packed. The poor old Kenwood TS-950SDX with Standard SSB filters and
defective attenuator (12 and 18 dB positions are dead) did its best,
but it was a very hard fight! I checked back on 15 meters around
1430z, worked a couple of stations, but then checked-in again at
the funny farm on 20 meters. The doctors shut down 20m US propagation
around 1730z and sent me to their branch office on 40m. On my way
I picked up a few quick multipliers on 15m. At 1900z 20m opened up
again to the US for an hour. At 2000z I jumped to 80m, but couldn't
get anything going, so at 2015z I decided to try out 160m for the
first time in the contest. I must have been spotted on the DX cluster
in the very first minute, because the frequency exploded in seconds.
I started operating split and moved the crowd "3 down". I could keep
the rate up and bagged 135 Topband QSOs in one hour and went back
to 80m for another hour, before at 2220z I switched to 40 meters for
some more 3-pointers from NA.
 
In my opinion the propagation on the second day was very different.
There was no 10m opening, and also 15m did not open to Central EU.
JA and US signals on 15 meters were weaker than the first day.

I guess in Central and North Europe the situation was even worse.
The lack of 10m and 15m propagation restricts the available
useful frequency spectrum for smaller stations during daylight to
the 250 kHz of 20m and less than 150 kHz of 40m. This means that
several thousand stations have to share these few hundred kHz.
CONGRATS to everybody who survived this mess... :-)

But there is hope: Latest in April 2009 all Europe can use
7100-7200 kHz, and hopefully the sunspots bring back life to 15m
and 10m, which will make the whole situation better!

My story of the second day is not very interesting: just hopping
around here and there to catch up on multipliers and find some rate.
I did not have a SO2R setup here - it was just the old TS-950SDX.
I only tried once or twice to find multipliers on the same band
while running - it was just too difficult to handle. Instead I went
on a number of old-style "multiplier trips" tuning over the bands.
It will be interesting to see how much worse (i.e. time consuming)
this is compared to the modern SO2R setups of my fellow EU
competitors, but it was my best choice.

73 Ben
SV9/DL6FBL


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