[3830] CQWW CW PZ5T(VE3DZ) SOAB HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: PZ5T
Operator(s): VE3DZ
Station: PZ5RA

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: Paramaribo, Suriname
Operating Time (hrs): 47
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:  161    12       28
   80:  614    19       75
   40: 1059    28       93
   20: 1747    36      112
   15: 1807    35      114
   10: 1523    27       98
------------------------------
Total: 6911   157      520  Total Score = 13,793,875

Club: Contest Club Ontario

Comments:

K3 + ACOM 2000
TS50 + TL922
Mosley PRO67A at 40', Tennadyne LogPeriodic at 40', 80 m dipole at 35', Alpha
Delta Half Sloper at 30'


I guess “me” and “no problems” just do not co-exist. Parallel
universes.
Friday night, just three days before my planned flight to Suriname, I caught
severe cold. Had to stay in bed for the whole weekend with the fever varying
from 37.5 (Saturday) to 38.5 (Sunday) degrees. Finally after intensive
consumption of a lot medication I managed to lower the body temperature to
normal on Monday and even managed to complete few urgent business matters.
Still, early Tuesday morning, while driving to the airport I was feeling like
I’m going to die pretty soon. For some reasons the customs at the Pearson
Airport decided to do a complete search me and young CBP officer (who
constantly called me “man” and “buddy”) nearly denied my entry to the
U.S. (I was flying to Miami and  then to Paramaribo) because for some unknown
reasons he considered my Elecraft K3 to be a  “commercial item” and
therefore requiring some special permission. After almost a half of an hour of
arguing and begging, I managed to talk to his supervisor (the good guy) and
after a lot explanation of what HAM Radio is, showing a bunch of licenses (VE,
W, PZ) and a copy of the CQ Magazine, I made it to the airplane. As you may
imagine, the whole thing did not contribute to my health in positive way. I was
really stressed.
This appeared to be a good start of the troubled day. 
I had to purchase 2 separate tickets (Toronto-Miami and Miami-Paramaribo)
because a lot of Travel Agencies would not have an agreement with Suriname
Airways. I had very little gap between the flights â€" only 2 hours â€" and I
was a bit worried. What if my first flight gets delayed? What if something
happens to my luggage?
Luckily the flight arrived in Miami in time, and my luggage was O.K., and I was
running like crazy from terminal to terminal (who said that HAM Radio is not a
sport?) â€" and showed up at the Suriname Airways counter just in time: an hour
and a half before departure… only to find out that my flight to Paramaribo is
initially delayed by 7 hours!
Anyway, I fairly admitted that I should not complain and this is much better
than if I would have been late, and decided to take care of my empty
stomach…
All in all, the flight left more than 11 hours later, just after 3 A.M. local
time. And who says that Miami is a warm place? It was only 62 F that night and
I really regretted that I put my Canadian jacket inside my checked-in bag…
We finally arrived in Paramaribo (with stop-over in Georgetown, Guyana) the
next day around noon local time. Of course, immigration office was closed and
me and few other people had to wait for almost an hour for the immigration
officer to show up. Finally, all the formalities were behind and I was picked
up by Ramon PZ5RA right at the exit from the Arrivals.
We made few stops on the way, and I think we made it to the station almost
around 4 P.M. 
Wednesday supposed to be my first “working” day here, but now I could
definitely write it off.
I spent Thursday doing some operating and setting up a station. I usually set
up a complete SO2R, but I barely used 2nd radio in the last couple of years
because  I was able to run 99% of the time. There was no changes in the Low
Bands antenna situation (low dipole for 80 m and low half-sloper for 160 m) so
I did not expect any improvement of my score in that direction. What I learned
from previous efforts is that one need to:
a) stay in the chair for the whole 48 hours, if possible;
b) move multipliers like crazy;
c) run, run, run…
This is just so much you can do when you are using modest set-up from the DX
location. I knew if I’d start S&P’ing, I would probably spend the whole
minute trying to convince the other Op that I am really “PZ5T”…
Last year I managed to start on 15, this time 15 meters were cold dead by the
beginning of the Contest. Even 20 was questionable, but I managed to run there
for a bit over 2 hours. First problem occurred just a bit over half an hour
into the contest, when OH0X asked to move to 40, 80 and 160. On 160 my laptop
got frozen for some reasons and could barely complete a QSO with OH0X using
paddle. Then I had to operate manually and log on paper while waiting for the
computer to reboot. Same thing happened again 3 or 4 times during the Contest.
I finally figured out that RF is getting into the USB cable of the interface on
the 2nd radio. As soon as I disconnected it, the problem disappeared.
Usually I am pretty good with rates, I even had the best rate in the last
year’s CQ WW CW: 
http://pileup.ru/cqww_rates.php?year=2011&contest_short=cqww_cw
 This year was not the case. All signals on 80, 40, 20 and even 15 meters were
so “watery” and multi-path that I had difficulty copying the calls from the
first try. Imaging few dozens of such signals at the same time… Terrible
sound. Sometimes I had to wait for the repeat 3 or 4 times. My rates were less
than impressive because of that: only 3 clock hours barely over 200/hr. and the
best Q-rate hour was 227…
Later Victor VA2WDQ who operated from Zone 2 as VE2EKA told me that he could
observe Aurora on Saturday…
Because of that constant struggle and the remaining illness I got tired much
earlier than expected and though I finally managed to stay awake, it cost me
nearly an hour to “refresh” myself with cold showers, coffee and
exercises…Was fighting fatigue the whole Saturday and Sunday morning.
I ended up with 600 less QSO’s than last year and almost 2 M points short.
Also, the multiplier total is way down as compared to the last year.
Again, big thank you to those who moved for me. 
Thanks to Ramon PZ5RA and his family for taking good care of me.
Congrats to Valery R5GA @ P40F and to Dave N2NL @ NH2T on outstanding scores! I
suspect more good scores are coming.
Another CQ WW is in the books. See you all next year!

Thanks for reading.

Yuri


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