[3830] ARRLDX SSB PJ2T M/M HP

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                    ARRL DX Contest, SSB

Call: PJ2T
Operator(s): K1MMH K4UEE W0CG KI4GSO KU4V N4GRN N4HH N4LR N4NX ND4V W4GKF WA4ZCV WZ8P
Station: PJ2T

Class: M/M HP
QTH: Netherlands Antilles
Operating Time (hrs): 47

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:  545    53
   80: 1368    59
   40: 2001    60
   20: 2336    59
   15: 2197    58
   10:  247    29
-------------------
Total: 8694   318  Total Score = 8,294,076

Club: Southeastern DX Club

Comments:

PJ2T had the pleasure of welcoming Bob Allphin, K4UEE, and a host of his
friends, mostly from the Southeastern DX Club (SEDXC)for this contest. Several
of this crew had just returned from the K5D operation, yet remarkably they were
still ready for more radio. In addition, Mary Hobart, K1MMH, ARRL's Chief
Development Officer was on our crew. Mary is the most senior official from ARRL
ever to visit PJ2T, and she did a great job in her first shot at big-power,
big-rate contesting. 

Have a look at:

http://asgard.kent.edu/ccc/arrlssb2009/img_9780.jpg 

for a photo of Mary and the special greeting we painted on the wall of the
shack for her. Dan (N1ZZ), the RigBlaster man and owner of West Mountain Radio
painted the ARRL logo during the CW weekend, and I did the lettering last week.


One of K4UEE's purposes in arranging this trip was to help expose
non-contesters to our niche of the hobby. There were a handful of operators on
our crew who had little to zero pervious contesting experience, and yet they
were all quick studies who will, we're sure, include contesting in their future
radio fun and will help attract others into trying contest operation.

Conditions were awful. We had a terrible time getting good rate the first night
because of a high "A" index and extremely bad noise on the low bands owing to
rainshowers all through this part of the Caribbean and northern Colombia and
Venezuela. Saturday morning was no better as all yagis on the States were aimed
at Europe to take advantage of good conditions on that path, especially on 20.
The good news, though, was that 15 opened about 90 minutes earlier than in the
CW weekend two weeks ago, and we were able to make hay most of the day on 15.
Late Saturday afternoon, however, 15 closed to Europe for much of the U.S. and
20 became a zoo because it was the only viable band for a couple of hours. We
managed one ESP QSO on 10 with W5PR (TX), but not a peep from anyone else in NA
Saturday on 28 MHz.

The second night was almost as bad, with high QRN and weak signals. Then, at
0845Z (4:45 AM local) the commercial power dropped. This was absolutely the
best time for this to happen, if it had to happen at all, as it's the slowest
hour of the entire contest. We hustled up and got the stations back up on the
generator, but lost pretty much an hour of operating time getting it all going.
I dumped the 5 gallon can of gas into the generator and then headed out for the
all-night gas station to refill the can in case this turned out to be a long
failure. As I was driving through the pitch-black village of Soto, the lights
came back up, I did a 180, and we got back on the commercial power soon
afterward. (We're going to have to work on a better system for switchovers....)


Sunday was so slow that for awhile in the early afternoon our Multi/Multi had
degraded to a single transmitter operation, with 20 being the only workable
band. Then late Sunday afternoon Wayne (KU4V), fresh from the K5D pileups,
worked W7ISG (AZ) at 2134Z (5:35 PM local) and it was off to the races. Wayne
quickly spun off 245 more Qs on 10, netting a total of 29 multipliers. This
magnificent Pacific scatter opening missed northern New England, all of VE,
most of W0, and all of W7 except Arizona, but it was still a big thrill and it
boosted our total score by almost 10%. The last Q on 10 was N5IW (TX) at 2317Z.
How weird is that? 

The highest rate hour of the entire contest was 2200-2300Z on Sunday, with 436
QSOs and 19 new mults. Amazing. 

Our Multi/Multi was done with four stations, but there were very few hours that
all four of them were needed. The equipment held up well, even through the power
failure, but we found out the hard way on Sunday that the Titan II would not
tune up on 10. We replaced the band switch in it last year and obviously fouled
something up. Our backup AL-1200 did fine after a quick swap. 

Thanks to SEDXC and K4UEE for making the trip to Curacao. Special thanks to
Mike (ND4V) for buying and bringing some hardware items that I can't get here
on the island. I'm also appreciative to SEDXC for the gift of a couple of
commemorative tee shirts from our weekend here. We made a lot of new friends
and look forward to hopefully seeing many of them back at PJ2T in the future.

And a special HUGE THANKS to Van Fair, W4GIW, for sending down his 1973 CQWW
SSB trophy. Van organized a group that operated in the PJ2T shack in October of
73 and won CQWW SSB (M/M). That trophy, which is a gorgeous engraved silver
plate, is now hanging in a place of honor in the PJ2T house, with an engraved
silver placard that reads "In this building in October 1973 a group of SEDXC
members organized by W4GIW won this CQWW MM phone trophy by almost 2 million
points." They signed PJ9GIW, posted a score of 11,132,443, and Chaz Cone
(W4GKW) who was with us just now in 2009 was on that historic GIW crew. Thanks,
Van.

The SEDXC gang also made us the gift of a beautiful framed photo of Chet
Brandon, PJ9EE, wtihout whom any of this Curcacao radio activity would ever
have happened, scooping a double handful of seashells out of the ocean at the
foot of PJ2T's cliff. This is a priceless keepsake that we'll treasure here at
the station. 

As always, great credit goes to CCC's incredible members who time and again are
willing to do whatever it takes to keep this station on the air. It's never
easy, but is ALWAYS fun. 

Thanks for the contacts. PJ2T made slightly over 16,000 QSOs in this year's
ARRL CW and SSB DX events. See you in WPX SSB.

    73,

       - Geoff, W0CG, PJ2DX


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