[3830] ARRL 10 OQ5M(@ON5ZO) M/S HP

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                    ARRL 10-Meter Contest

Call: OQ5M
Operator(s): ON5ZO + ON0DXK
Station: ON5ZO

Class: M/S HP
QTH: JO20AR
Operating Time (hrs): 4.5

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
   CW:  118    36
  SSB:    0     0
-------------------
Total:  118    36  Total Score = 16,992

Club: Rhein Ruhr DX Association

Comments:

Against common sense, but you never know what might happen. That was my attitude
towards this year’s ARRL 10m contest. A tribander with 5 elements for 10m at
22m above the ground, there are worse things to have. On Saturday morning, I
could work some local EU in a 2000 km range, with the occasional UA9 between
3000 km and 5000 km away. But not many and no strong signals. Around 9.15 UTC I
got called by 2 ZL3′s in a 5 minute time span. Getting their call was very
hard yet the easy part. Then trying to get the number… The VK3 and the VK6
were much easier to copy. I managed to log 3 HS0′s too, quite strong and
easily worked.

In the afternoon I had high hopes for some USA. The first one I heard was K1LZ
around 14.00 utc. He wasn’t loud at all but good copy and no QSB. But he kept
throwing CQ’s at me. Fine, maybe someone else? The first I could actually work
was K1TO. The following hour I worked 24 USA stations, of which 15 came from
Florida. No caribean. I tried to work a WP4/KP3 (don’t rememeber) but no go.
Even the Brazillians were weak and harder to work than usual. The band died and
so did my motivation. Saturday was a huge disappointment.

Sunday was even worse. All EU I heard was already in the log. In the afternoon
I tried for some USA. VY2ZM was loud when I worked him on Saturday, he was very
light on Sunday. The propagation barometer pointed to ‘go process the pile of
QSL cards’. I stumbled across a weak KC1XX but all I could squeeze out was a
‘QRZ’, an ‘AGN’ and a couple of dididahdahdidi’s. I was about to go
watch some TV (I hate processing QSL cards) when the S-meter got spastic.
‘…LZ’. Huh? K1LZ? S9++? Must be a local… No it was indeed K1LZ, S9+. I
called him and we had a brief exchange of information about actual RST and
antennas, but he went down to S3 and less during the 1 minute QSO. I worked
another 2 light NA’s and then called it a day. No propagation, and heavy QSB
on the signals that were there.

I came on HF late 2000 and played low power with a 3 element monobander on 10m
only 8m high during 2001-2002. I can’t wait to have those conditions again
with a bigger and higher antenna. Maybe in 2023?

73 de Franki ON5ZO
http://www.on5zo.be/


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