[3830] Oceania SSB VK8PDX SOSB/20 LP

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                    Oceania DX Contest, Phone

Call: VK8PDX
Operator(s): VK8PDX
Station: VK8PDX

Class: SOSB/20 LP
QTH: Alice Springs, NT
Operating Time (hrs): 19

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:           
   80:           
   40:           
   20:  498   261
   15:           
   10:           
-------------------
Total:  498   261  Total Score = 129,978

Club: VK Contest Club

Comments:

I decided to operate SOSB 20m because this is the only band where I have a
reasonable antenna.

At the start of the contest I noticed a number of VKs already working Europe.
But for the first two hours I had a very slow rate with only JA, UA0 and
YB’s. So I was starting to worry that this could be a very disappointing
contest. Then the first European short path signal (8S0C) appeared at 1006 UTC.
By 1030 UTC I finally had a small European pile-up with 20 QSOs in that hour.
Conditions were then fantastic for the next 4 hours to Europe:

1130-1230 UTC 68 QSOs
1230-1330 UTC 72 QSOs
1330-1430 UTC 67 QSOs
1430-1530 UTC 51 QSOs and then the band quickly died  

The next morning I started looking long path to North America at 2100-2300 UTC
and later short path at 0400-0700 UTC but I didn’t make a single QSO with
that part of the world. But that’s been indicative of the conditions on 20m
from my location at the moment in central desert Australia. Over the past few
weeks I’ve had no propagation to North America on 20m – so sorry guys, I
was trying for you. This meant that most of Sunday I’d be alternating between
beaming to ZL/south-east VK or to JA to build up the number of QSOs. This was a
real grind because the rate was slow but it seemed worth it in the end. There
was a brief long path opening to Europe at 0530 UTC but I don’t tend to have
very good propagation to Europe via long path and I only made 1 QSO. So after
0530 I spent the rest of the contest beaming north looking for JA. Hopefully
next year there will be some openings to North America on 20m. I’m not
complaining though, the wonderful short path opening to Europe was really
exciting and lots of fun. Normally in the DX contests I don’t get the chance
to run, I tend to just search and pounce. Thanks to everyone who gave me a call
and I’ll see you all in CQWW SSB – with 100w I will definitely be in search
and pounce mode there hi hi!


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