[3830] CQWW SSB 6Y1V M/2 HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB

Call: 6Y1V
Operator(s): IZ7KHR LU9ESD G3NKC G4XUM G4BUO KY1V
Station: 6Y1V

Class: M/2 HP
QTH: Hopwell Jamaica
Operating Time (hrs): 48

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:  481    15       67
   80: 1034    22       94
   40: 2400    28      117
   20: 2812    36      132
   15: 2156    34      124
   10:   88    13       27
------------------------------
Total: 8971   148      561  Total Score = 15,081,139

Club: 

Comments:

Another fun contest was had by all at 6Y1V.

Once again, a young ham, Francesco Cozzi, IZ7KHR was sponsored for an all
expense paid trip to 6Y1V. Francesco, having no experience with large pileups,
sophisticated equipment and participating in a team environment was a class act
and held is own during each shift. Congratulations Francesco. We hope to see
your name in many future contest groups! The ARI should be proud!

Thanks to Dave, G3NKC, Martin, G4XUM and Dave, G4BUO for making the trip from
the UK to participate at 6Y1V. These gentlemen, from MD4K and M6T are excellent
contesters!

Returning from Argentina was last years YHCP winner, Manu, LU9ESD. Once again,
Manu was an integral team member both on and off the air. Manu was eager to
climb the 40 meter tower to make necessary repairs.

Following yet another Hurricane, 6Y1V was plagued with unforeseen antenna
problems that required repair. The top MonstIR yagi was more than 100 degrees
out of alignment, the 160 meter slopers all failed and the rotating tower had
once again dropped its chain and required alignment.  In addition, the 80 meter
four square was not functioning upon arrival.

Our team wasted no time making necessary repairs. The first order of business
was the 160 meter slopers which we repaired in short order by experienced low
band contesters, G3NKC and G4XUM. Once completed and tested, the quickly moved
on to tackle the 80 meter four square issues that were caused from the local
goats chewing on the cables on the ground.

Once Manu arrived, we were able to make the necessary alignment on the 140’
MonstIR yagi which required multiple trips up the tower. Safety was our utmost
concern and Manu was required to climb slowly, using a three point climb
system, then securing himself with two lanyards when working.

The rotating tower system was problematic even after a link was removed from
the chain and replaced on the sprockets. The calibration process failed with an
over travel message that could not be resolved and we eventually decided to
place the system in debug mode and turn the tower using the “30 degrees of
rotation per 5 second” rule. Astonishingly, it worked quite well and even
after dark we were able to accurately point the razor sharp stacks into the
Pacific and Asia and work more multipliers than previous years.

In addition to the rotating tower problems, we couldn’t get the controllers
for the MonstIR’s yagis to synchronize as a single unit and each had to be
positioned manually when changing directions.

Fortunately, all of the electronics in the shack proved to be in excellent
working order, although one of the IC-7800 screens didn’t light up on first
boot giving us a short scare. It came up on a second start and worked perfectly
thereafter.

We secured a new WiFi Internet service which after several failures during the
pre contest week, provided to be quite reliable during the contest. 

Despite all of the pre-contest issues,  and not having power for 7 hours on the
morning of the contest, we managed to pull everything together and put forth a
formidable effort, hopefully good for at least 1st place M2 North America. 

Congratulations to AO8A (with my manager Kari OH3RB guest op) on their fabulous
performance. I would also like to extend my condolences to the PJ2T and PJ4E
teams whom were plagued with issues preventing them from posting their normally
high scores. We wish you guys better luck in CQWW CW.

Thanks you to all who are in our logs as without you wading through the muck of
the pileups we would never have had so much fun.

Highlights for me? Making another young hams dream come true;  for the second
year in a row, bringing back the previous year’s winner; making new friends
with experienced foreign contesters; breaking huge US pileups on stations in
Asia (I am the mult-guy, although G3NKC caught me making an unusual run on 160
and named me the new low-band guy…Yuck, I hate static!); taking a few seconds
to say hello to friends during the contest.

Winning a multi-op effort from 6Y1V with a 1 point deficit for US contacts is
nearly impossible, however, we sure have a blast trying!  See you all in CQWW
CW next month.

David ~ KY1V


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