[3830] ARRLDX CW PJ2T M/M HP

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Wed Feb 23 04:00:39 PST 2011


                    ARRL DX Contest, CW

Call: PJ2T
Operator(s): W0CG W0NB NP2L K8LEE N4QQ N1ZZ N0VD W9VA WA9S
Station: PJ2T

Class: M/M HP
QTH: Curacao
Operating Time (hrs): 48

Summary:
 Band  QSOs   Mults
--------------------
  160:   794    58
   80:  1349    58
   40:  1969    59
   20:  2366    58
   15:  2220    59
   10:  1647    56
--------------------
Total: 10345   348  Total Score = 10,800,180

Club: CCC

Comments:

As nearly as we can tell (from the compilation of records by K3PH at
www.arrl.org), this could be a new all-time record on the DX side. The prior
M/M high score was 9.78M (V26B, 1998). Also, it appears from this listing that
never before has the 10M threshold been crossed on the DX side in ARRL DX CW.
That's how good the conditions were this weekend, and we were lucky to be in
the right place at the right time. 

A new addition at PJ2T this time was a high modified inverted vee for 80,
placed on top of the 200 foot ridge behind the QTH. We installed this antenna
on Thursday, and it looks pretty impressive pushed up above what seems to be
the very top of the world up there. Views all 360 degrees are incredible, and
so is the performance of this antenna. But N1ZZ suffered for it. While we were
working on guy ropes for the antenna mast, he was poked in the left eye by a
thorn bush. Lots of blood and no small amount of panic as he reported that his
vision in the left side was going blurry. We quickly arranged via 2 meter
handheld, with W0NB on the ground at the QTH, to phone the village doctor, and
have both him and the truck on standby awaiting our climb down the mountain.
N1ZZ is in superb physical condition at 72 and had no trouble making it down
the cliff and climbing down the rock face, in spite of his injury and blazing
tropical heat and sun. We rushed Dan to Dr. Lucasius in the village of Soto,
and after checking things out he determined that the wound would heal on its
own, and that Dan was extremely lucky that the hole in his eye was not a couple
of millimeters higher, which could have been much, much more serious. W0CG is
personally acquainted with this doctor, which was a huge help in our being seen
immediately after the injury.

Dan's eye will heal but our computers won't. We had by far the toughest weekend
in PJ2T history with Murphy-induced problems. Only one of the four station PCs
got through the weekend alive. W0CG went nuts hot-swapping computers,
reinstalling balky Winkey drivers on the fly, swapping Logikeyers, replacing
bad LPT1 adapters, and trying to fix (not very successfully), machine-generated
CW that sounded like left-hand sending on two of the machines. (Naturally, all
had been 100% good for the entire two weeks beore the contest.) We also lost an
Ethernet cable for no apparent reason, and a Daiwa coax switch went open on its
own on 40, requiring some fast trouble-shooting. Don't know if it was a bad
marriage between this version of Writelog and the Winkeyer drivers or what, but
I had little hair and less patience left by the end of the weekend. This was the
kick in the tail we needed to get rid of all of the antique computers, so next
contest we hope to be in the current millenium with all new PCs and probably
Microham port adapters.

In spite of the disasters throughout the weekend, we managed mostly to keep all
four stations up and running and take advantage of the good conditions. VE5
turned out to be the problem multiplier this year. It's usually VE4, so we were
particularly on the lookout for Manitoba, and are grateful to VE4EAR who
patiently moved from band to band to fill that need. Not so lucky with VE5, and
we ended up about 4 mults lower than we should have, missing VE5s nearly
everywhere. 10 was pretty solid, finally, but the openings developed late and
slowly. Some fellows on the SMC reflector commented that we seemed to be
auto-CQing on 10 and not hearing the callers. Not sure what happened, as we
were all over 10 waiting for the opening, but we must have missed its leading
edge. W0AIH was the first 10 meter QSO on Saturday. 

We welcomed N0VD to his first operation here as a CCC member, and were
delighted to meet his girlfriend Christine. We're also indebted to NP2L for
doing the thankless job of building the operator schedule, and to my partner
Dorothy Dahlgren for all of her smiling and patient support of the team with
food and beverages and lots of encouragement.

We're now into the second decade of contesting from PJ2T, and hope to be able
to keep it going for a long time yet. It's a lot of work, but so far the
fun-factor makes it worthwhile. Thanks to all the guys who sacrificed a week of
shoveling snow and scraping ice off their windshields to come to Paradise, where
we had perfect weather, a great swimming pool at our rental house, and wonderful
fellowship. Also, we're operating here in air-conditioned comfort in the shack
after 10 years of 100 degree inside temps in front of the PJ2T radios. Thanks
to all the CCC PJ2T members for their continuing support. See you at Dayton in
our contest forum presentation "Getting it Up and Keeping it Up at PJ2T." K1DG
has not yet quite bought into that title, but come anyway and we'll update you
on what will need to happen in order to keep this station on the air into the
future. We need your help, so you might find yourself a part of the PJ2T
odyssey in the future.

Thanks and 73,

       - Geoff, W0CG, PJ2DX


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