[3830] TBDC PJ2T(K8ND) Single Op HP

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                    Stew Perry Topband Challenge

Call: PJ2T
Operator(s): K8ND
Station: PJ2T

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: Curacao
Operating Time (hrs): 13

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 590  Total Score = 6,478

Club: 

Comments:

Primary Station:
   Radio: K3
   Amp: Ten-Tec Titan III (2 x 4CX800A)
   Windows 7 / Writelog (networked)

Hot-Backup Station:
   Radio: FT-2000
   Amp: Ameritron AL-1200 (1 x 3CX1200A7
   Windows 7 / Writelog (networked)

TX Antenna: Quarter-wave Inverted-L  (~50-feet vertical, rest sloping up to
95-foot level on Europe tower)
                    ~60 radials on ground

RX Antennas:
   1000-foot Europe Beverage
    650-foot USA/JA Beverage

I've been wanting to operate the Stew from the Signal Point station since my
first trip down in 2002. Circumstances have not allowed that, but I finally got
my chance this year! People have sugggestd that flying down and doing the work
and having the expense of a trip for what is essentially a 12-hour contests is
insane. They are correct, and so here I am on what is my 19th trip to Curacao
since 2002. Well worth it!

Since I'm here by myself, I did not have the DX Engineering RX 4-square
available to supplement our permenantly-installed Europe and USA/JA Beverages.
The 4-square is deployed "Field Day Style" for each contest in a large
brambly-field West of the Signal Point house, and the tasks associated with
deploying and re-storing the 1000 feet of RG-6 feedline and power wiring and
setting up the antennas is more than my bad knees, bad ankles, and out-of-shape
self could be trusted to accomplish safely alone in the heat of Curacao, so I
used just the permanent Topband infrastructure for this contest.

This time of year, there are only about 12.5 hours of dark on Curacao. I
started the contest at 2200Z, just before dusk. At that point, experience has
shown that we can hear Europe CQing and 'feeding upon itself", but there is no
benefit to our calling them: they will not hear us.  So, we CQ and work what we
can until the USA gets more into dark, and the Europeans start listening in the
direction of North and South America.

First surprise was being called by CE1/K7CA at 2248Z. At that time, I was in
the middle of the greyline period, and it would be an hour before the sun went
down at his location in coastal Chile, around 2800 miles South of Curacao! He
was loud, and stayed that way throughout the night here.

The dark hours started off very quiet considering our location at 12-degrees
North of the Equator. As dark spread over the USA, I was hearing fulll
callsigns and grids, even from the weaker stations. This is much better than
"letter mining" the parts of callsigns that often float in the sea of noise on
Topband! Conditions got worse later, and culminated in a typical local
rainstorm in the hour before dawn. I was still able to copy stations, but
crashes often took letters and at least one "layer" of weak stations became a
warble under the noise.

I set up shop on 1834.0, and stayed there until after Europe sunrise, and then
migrated to 1815.0 for the JA stations. Except for one very brief run to the
bathroom at around 0900Z, I was continuously in the chair.

I had two cases of stations (one USA one European) plopping essentially
zero-beat with me and calling CQ for extended periods. Not nice, and forced me
to focus on the other area (USA or Europe) while ceding the other continent to
the ursurper. Eventually, they go away, either to S&P or when they get tired of
stations calling me through them (what I call the "bulldozer effect"). 

At about 0200Z, I noticed that calling European stations were louder on the
USA/JA Beverage than they were on the Europe Beverage! This lasted for about 90
minutes, when the flopped back to normal behavior. These antennas are pointed
essentially 90 degrees apart!

As usual, with the passing of Europe sunrise, hoards of North American
operators turned off their radios and went to bed. Please note: "Sleep is for
the Weak". The rate, which had been between 55 and 85 per hour for 7.5 hours
dropped abruptly to the high teens and went as low as 8/hour during the 0900Z
hour.  

A flurry of 19 Japanese stations worked between 1013Z and 1100Z (at 28 or 29
points each) rescued the rate in what was my final hour of this Stew.

I worked 19 JA stations, and 116 Europeans among my 590 QSOs in this Stew. No
VK/ZL. I count 300 grids. I know from scanning 3830 that there will be a many
Low Power and QRP QSO points adding to this posed score.

Among those North Americans worked were five of the members of the Caribbean
Contesting Consortium, the club which has built and maintains the Signal Point
PJ2T station: NP2L, N1ZZ, N8BJQ, W8TK, and W9JUV. Thanks to the Club for making
my Stew trip to Curacao possible!

One highlight for me was working W8JK. The callsign of Antenna guru John Kraus
W8JK (sk) is now issued to the 'John D Kraus Memorial Amateur Radio Club' and
it's trustee Bob W8ERD. Bob was Vice Director of the Ohio State University
radiotelescope facility "Big Ear", and John Kraus was Director. Back in the
70s, I got started in 160 contesting with the W8LT OSU radio club, and for many
years we operated in the ARRL 160 Contest the 'Big Ear' facility, using it's 2.5
acre aluminum foil ground plane under our transmit antennas, and it's large
property for our many Beverages. Bob was one of our operators and our patron
for these outings, and Dr. Kraus would make an occassional appearance while we
shut down their normal operations for a weekend each year. Alas, the Big Ear
was razed to make room for a much-needed golf course expansion and more housing
(grrrrrrrr...), but those operations planted a love of Topband operating in a
generation of W8LT operators. Some of them you may have worked in this Stew:
K1LT and WB8JUI, and of course W8ERD using the W8JK callsign.

Thanks for all the QSOs! I'll be back here at the PJ2T station for the CQWW 160
CW Contest in January, either single-op or with another operator.

 73,  Jeff PJ2/K8ND


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