[3830] CQWW CW CT8/W1NN SOAB LP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: CT8/W1NN
Operator(s): W1NN
Station: CT8/W1NN

Class: SOAB LP
QTH: Azores
Operating Time (hrs): 39

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:    5     3        3
   80:  274    13       41
   40:  849    24       76
   20:  677    21       67
   15:  791    17       71
   10:  564    20       67
------------------------------
Total: 3160    98      325  Total Score = 2,971,998

Club: Mad River Radio Club

Comments:

This was a temporary setup in a rental house on the island of Pico, one of the
nine main islands making up the Azores.  The setup consisted of a single K3
with three pretty modest antennas:  a ground plane for 10-20 meters, a dipole
for 40 (also useable on 15) and a 160 meter ladder-line fed dipole for the low
bands.  The latter was only up about 15 in the middle and was bent in the
middle of each leg.  It did a reasonable job on 80 but hardly worked at all on
160.  All equipment and antennas were carried to the island in my suitcases and
hand luggage.

How did I end up in the Azores?  In the last couple of years I have had quite a
bit of business travel to Europe and I was able to arrange some of these trips
to be just before or just after a major contest, so I have had the chance to
operate contests from Germany (DL0MB in the 2010 ARRL DX), Jersey (MJ/W1NN in
the 2010 WPX) and Norway (LG5LG in the 2011 WPX).  With another European
business trip scheduled for mid-November, I naturally was thinking about a
place to operate CQWWDX CW.  Since my previous efforts had been from northerly
locations, I thought it would be interesting to operate from southern Europe
this time, and I explored a number of possibilities.  I was leaning toward
Portugal because I thought it would have good propagation into most of Europe
and North America and also because I had never spent much time there and wanted
to see more of it.

A message to CT1BOH asking for ideas brought the suggestion from Jose to look
at the Azores, which are of course Portuguese territory.  Initially, I thought
it was too far and I was not too keen on yet more airplane flights, but the
more I looked at it, the more interested I became.  There were quite a few
rental villas available and it was the low season (for reasons which I would
discover myself).  I found a house which had some space around it and a view of
the ocean and which seemed to be located on the best side of the island.  A
quick email asking if I could erect some simple antennas brought a positive
response from the owner.  I reserved the house, booked my flights and the trip
was on!

The house is located on the island of Pico.  Although Pico has a small airport,
I found out that the best way to get there was via direct flight from Lisbon
into Horta Airport on the neighboring island of Faial.  I would then have to
take a 30 minute ferry boat ride to Pico.  

The minimum house rental term was one week so I booked the house for a Monday
arrival and a Monday departure.  This would presumably give me plenty of time
to set things up and do some sightseeing before the start of the contest at 11
PM local time on Friday.  I knew that departing just 8.5 hours after the end of
the contest would be rather frantic but I needed to be back in Amsterdam for my
flight back to the US on the Wednesday after the contest, and I wanted some
leeway in case of problems, so a Monday departure was really my only option.

Before leaving the US, I did a lot of thinking and reading about portable
antennas.  I finally ordered a telescopic antenna from MFJ that extends out to
17 feet and collapses to about 25 inches, small enough to fit into a suitcase. 
I figured that I could use this as a ground plane by mounting it on the hillside
in front of the house and run radials down the hill at a 45 degree angle.  By
adjusting the length of the antenna, I could use it on 20, 15 and 10.  I also
ordered a 33’ mast and was going to take it to fashion a 40 meter vertical,
but I finally decided not to take it since it would require a third piece of
check-in luggage.  In addition to the materials for the vertical, I hauled a
number of dipoles, ropes, wire and associated antenna parts plus tools and
spare parts that might be needed.  I took along a fishing reel and some weights
and I really wanted to take a slingshot for putting ropes into trees, but I was
concerned that the slingshot could be considered a weapon (as it is in some US
jurisdictions) so I reluctantly left it home and hoped that I would be able to
throw weights high enough to get my support ropes into the available trees. 
(Unfortunately I found that I could not and it cost me dearly in terms of
antenna height.)  I took the K3 and my laptop in my carryon and everything else
was packed in two large suitcases.

The flight from Lisbon to Horta and the ferry boat ride across to Pico went
smoothly and the house owner met me at the ferry terminal on Pico.  He loaned
me a car, a cell phone, wifi connection equipment and took me to the house.  By
3 PM Monday afternoon I was ensconced in my new home and looking over the place
for antennas.

Unfortunately, there were no real tall trees and I could see that I was not
going to be able to get the 160 meter dipole up very high or very straight. 
For the first night, I put up a 20 meter dipole so I could get on the air and
make a few contacts.  It was only up about 15 feet but I was able to run a few
dozen stations and get a taste of my new QTH.  

The next day was a clear, warm day with little wind, and I began to install the
160 antenna.  I had thought that I could use the two-story house as a support
for one end of the antenna but my fishing line and ropes kept getting caught in
the roof tiles and after spending much of the morning on this, I finally had to
abandon this idea for fear of pulling roof tiles off.  So I was left with using
the fairly short (25-30’) olive trees as supports.  These are very dense trees
and I had a great deal of trouble getting my fishing line very far up into them.
 The best I could do was to get the antenna up over some branches around the
middle of these trees and then bend rest of the antenna out at right angles.  
When I finished, the middle of the antenna was only up about 15 feet.   It was
right at the top of the slope going down toward the ocean about 2 miles away,
though, so I thought it might work okay.  It loaded fine on all bands but 160
where the K3’s tuner just barely managed to get the SWR to around 3 to 1.  It
seemed to work fairly well on 80 and the high bands, but on 40 it was not doing
a very good job.  Fortunately in the garage I found an long extension ladder
and a piece of pvc pipe from which I was able to fashion a center support for a
40 meter dipole with the center up about 35’.  This antenna worked very well
on both 40 and 15 and accounted for around half of all of my contacts.  As
planned, I also put up the vertical on the edge of the slope and it also seemed
to work pretty well.  I worked around 600 stations in pre-contest testing but I
knew that once the contest began it would not be so simple.

I was planning additional antenna refinements but on Tuesday night, a storm
moved in and the next three days were miserable.  Wind gusts which I would
estimate at 60 MPH brought down my 160 dipole and made any kind of antenna work
impossible.  The shutters on the house were banging around and one window broke
before I could get them all shut.  The wind also interfered with our sleep. 
The following day it rained the whole day.  Finally on Friday the rain stopped
and the wind eased up, allowing me to get the antenna back up, but it was still
very low.

The contest begins at 11 PM local in the Azores, so an op is almost guaranteed
to feel tired after staying up all night during the first 7 hours of the
contest.  I managed to get a couple of hours of sleep before the start time,
but I knew that I would not be able to make it for 48 hours.  In the event, I
kept going for the first 27 hours before taking a nap at 0300 the second day.

The first two hours started off rather slow for me.  I was using S&P and most
stations had trouble with my call sign.  (Jose had tried to get a special call
for me but was told that such calls were not available to stations operating
under CEPT.  Thanks for trying, Jose!)  At the end of the first two hours I had
only 81 contacts in the log and I was starting to get worried.  I decided that
if I was going to produce any kind of score, I would have to start running, so
I found a frequency and started calling CQ.  Much to my surprise, it was
successful.  93 contacts made it into the log during the third hour and I was
off to the races.  The next couple of hours on 40 were tremendous with the
last-ten rate often going over 200 and hitting 243 once.  After the first 8
hours I had 661 contacts and had overcome those first two poor hours.  The
average rate for the rest of the contest remained at the 80-85 level.  

The first hours of the morning when the high bands were opening up to the east
were generally my poorest on both days and the best hours were in the afternoon
and evening working NA.  40 was also very good in the evening.  The Azores are
located nearly 1,000 miles due west of Lisbon and about 2,000 miles from
Frankfurt, Germany.  To New York it is around 2,425 miles and to Cleveland
about 2,800.  Pico Island is located at around 28.5 degrees north latitude,
around the same as Washington DC.  I had expected that the vast majority of my
contacts would be with Europe, which was closer and in a much more northerly
direction from me, but I was surprised to find that I was doing better into
North America than into Europe.  Overall, 52% of my contacts during the contest
were with NA versus 43% with EU.  I really can’t explain why.  I sure was
surprised at how loud NA was, especially on 80 meters.    

Two things stand out in my results.  First, my poor 160 performance.  Almost
nobody could hear me and I found it very unproductive to even try.  Somehow
KC1XX managed to pull me through for my only NA contact (and my only six
bander) but otherwise it was a bust.  The second thing is my really awful
multiplier.  Normally in a contest I expect that most mults will call in and I
don’t spend that much time looking for them, but clearly that did not happen
in this contest.  When I did go looking for mults, it was time-consuming and
sometimes difficult to get through the pileups, so basically I found it better
to run than to search for multipliers.

As many have pointed out, the pileups this time were horrendous.  Frequently
5-6 stations would call simultaneously on exactly the same frequency, making it
almost impossible to pick out anything.  This mainly seemed to be a NA problem. 
So many US stations have two letter calls that are pretty much the same length
and almost everyone starts sending at exactly the same moment.  I hope that the
attention that this topic has received will convince more ops to shift their
calling frequency up or down just a little.  They’ll get through a lot
faster.  

I was one of those stations who occasionally went 4-5 contacts without IDing
when the pileups were particularly heavy and nasty.  Some criticize this as
being selfish but with a long call sign like I had, the result of IDing after
each QSO would mean that quite a few people in the pileup would have to wait
even longer to work me.  I felt that it was best not only for me but for the
stations waiting to work me that I try to go as fast as possible.  Anytime I
heard a ? I would ID after the next QSO.  I also understand what it is like to
be listening to a station who doesn’t ID often enough. 

Overall it was a great experience to operate from a place like the Azores and I
don’t have any major complaints.  I had been greatly concerned that the rig,
the power supply or the laptop would develop a problem and leave me sitting in
my rental house with no way to operate.  I initially had packed a backup rig
and computer but eliminated them at the last minute to keep the weight down.  I
am so relieved and thankful that the K3, the Astron switching PS and the Gateway
laptop made it through the week.

Thanks to CT1BOH for his suggestions and support, thanks to all the
participants, and thanks to CQ Magazine and the many volunteers who make this
event possible.

Hal W1NN


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