[3830] CQ160 CW A7/M0FGA(K5GN) Single Op HP

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                    CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW

Call: A7/M0FGA
Operator(s): K5GN
Station: A7/M0FGA/P

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: Al Mafjar, Qatar
Operating Time (hrs): 28

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 1181  State/Prov = 19  Countries = 77  Total Score = 993,312

Club: 

Comments:

Another beach trip by the Qatar Amateur Radio Society!  This one ended up with
me going single-operator because of last-minute complications for the other CW
aficionados here.  Ali 'BX and Abdulla 'CV helped me with the antennas and Juma
'EM lent me his generator.  Setup Friday and take-down Monday.  Two days of
leave from work, as Sunday is the first day of the work week here.  

Location: just north of a ghost town on the northeast shore of Qatar.

TX Antenna: Inverted L, 65' of aluminum plus a 70' tail of wire pulled away at
a slope to ground about 300' away, base at the high tide mark, with two
elevated radials parallel to the shoreline.  

RX Antennas: 10' tall, 40' spacing EWEs NW and NE.  The NW EWE was about 700'
away from the TX antenna and allowed me to find a lot of dupes on a second
receiver during the last part of the contest.  No new mults found that way. 
Greater separation and turning it further to the east so the null lined up
better would have made the rejection of the TX signal great enough for this
setup to hear the weaker ones.  

The objective was to work a lot of guys on 160 who haven't worked Zone 21 or
A7.  I think this happened.  Also to put in a decent score in the contest. 
However, this is not a great location for a high score in a 160 contest-no
local QSOs to speak of (OK, one HZ and one A7, not like working hundreds of W's
or Europeans).

It was interesting to hear signals on the band an hour and a half before sunset
and more than an hour after sunrise.  However, only the Zone 16 guys seemed to
be able to hear me until after sunset.  Called BD1BYV and BA4RF who were up to
S7-8 on peaks before sunset but they CQ'd in my face.  Called other long haul
DX to the east but hardly could get anyone.  Then just as signals began to
improve to them, the Europeans took over the band.  Not that it's so bad to
have the band full of loud DX, but just hard to work the ones to the east.  

I still can't believe I worked 77 countries on Top Band in one weekend!  Worked
All Continents!  Worked 24 CQ Zones!  Heard 3 more!  Wow!

Best hours were at the start, 91 and 90, never broke 100.  Sunrise did not seem
to be the peak for North America, but the YV's came in close to sunrise for a
big thrill for a tired op.

Work is now taking up large chunks of weekends so this was about the last trip
to the beach of loudness until after summer.  See you on 6m when it heats back
up, or on 40m when I can get on.

73,

Dave


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