[3830] ARRL 10 VK8AA(VK2CZ) SO SSB HP

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                    ARRL 10-Meter Contest

Call: VK8AA
Operator(s): VK2CZ
Station: VK8AA

Class: SO SSB HP
QTH: Darwin
Operating Time (hrs): 

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
   CW:    0     0
  SSB:  130    28
-------------------
Total:  130    28  Total Score = 10,008

Club: 

Comments:

The weekend away in Darwin for the 2009 ARRL 10m event was threatened from many
quarters this year. Changing jobs three times this year, one involuntary, one
short term contract and one long term contract made it almost impossible to
secure the 4 days off.

Arriving in Darwin to find a cyclone warning in place has happened a few times
in the past, but this year was different. There was no sunshine, no
debilitating heat, in fact I was cold ! You would have to conclude that I came
ill prepared and under dressed, and genuinely question the base data where some
have concluded it is global warming.  With the heaters on, the business to get
prepared started in earnest.

Operating from the same industrial yard in Berrimah (adjacent to Hidden Valley
motor racing circuit) as 2008 was familiar and simple, except that the big
60ton crane was unavailable. Using a tiny 20ton Franna and some custom
steelwork, the antenna was elevated to 23m above ground.  The configuration
with the Franna was to mount the antenna at the very top of the jib, providing
unrestricted 360 degree rotational coverage. 

As the antenna had to man handled onto the jib, the old massive 9 element yagi
was hacksawed back to 7 elements on a 50’ boom which was readily lifted by
one person and pinned to the Franna by Greg. A quick VSWR check showed all was
in order and we stowed it Friday night, ready to start the contest event
Saturday morning (9:30am local is 00:00z).

A full equipment test was run on Friday as well with a list of issues that just
nearly stopped the operation.  You see, I literally just upgraded to an IC-7600
(thanks to Bob ant HRO in Oakland), and sold off the IC-756pro3. Surprise -
surprise, the isolated linear interfacing lead did not function.. so the old
lead was cut up and re-connected, and yes, the 7600 linear interface menu
setting were all tried.

Blowing up the brand new IC-7600 was never on the agenda, but hey, it came down
to how you would deal with ‘show stopper’s.  Dipping into something on the
web circulating a few years back where the IC-756pro3 had an undocumented
internal fusible link, and just hoping the Icom engineers had used the same
approach in building the 7600..  so 40 screws and a few covers later and a trip
to the local electronics store, the 760 burst back into life.

Saturday morning arrives, and an hour before ‘start time’,  the coax to the
antenna was short circuit.  Lowering the crane, testing the balun, doing a
‘feel’ test of the 60m long coax feedline showed no issues. Three hours
later the antenna went back into the air with a new set of coax plugs
terminated onto the coax.  It turns out that a little moisture had penetrated
both plug while in storage, and whatever bug was living in the connectors was
now carbon fibre from the Friday equipment test. The connectors looked almost
brand new, but the multimeter showed them to be short circuit!  

Starting the contest around 03:00z, and missing a neat local VK/ZL opening was
frustrating, at least everything was worked now !  On day 1, I had worked just
3 VK’s, with two of those local here in VK8, and just one ZL station. 
Conditions with the small 7 element yagi were demoralizing. I did manage some
good contact runs to JA using sporadic E, meteor scatter and luck, and a
massive run to EU.  The goal of 50 QSO’s on day 1 seemed ambitious.

Day two, and things improved significantly, with some far better propagation
into JA, VU and central Asia and EU. Nothing heard from NA. Final QSO count was
around 148, and have yet to work out a score estimate.  

In the background to all this, tropical cyclone Lawrence was declared for
Darwin, and during the contest event, around 350mm of rain fell (that is 14
inches). Operating in wet clothes is not recommended, exacerbated by the manual
means of rotating the yagi every 20 minutes or so. This really felt like a
‘Survivor Challenge’, and doubt if any script writer could have came up
with this scenario.

The station was dismantled around 09:00z on day 2, which coincided to by Sunday
evening here. Missing a possible operating window from 21:30z to 23:59z on day
2, propagation was checked on Mark’s VK8MS station with a TS-2000/vertical
with nothing heard.

Others questioned whether there was any value in doing this trip, but hey, it
was an adventure, had a weekend away from Sydney, and how could you substitute
meeting the colorful characters in the “top-end’.

One comment would summarize the event, ‘How bad is bad ?’  

73, David Burger VK8AA  (VK2CZ)


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