[3830] IARU 3W3XX(LZ4AX) SOABMixed LP

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                    IARU HF World Championship

Call: 3W3XX
Operator(s): LZ4AX
Station: 3W3XX

Class: SOABMixed LP
QTH: Phu Loc
Operating Time (hrs): 23

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Zones  HQ Mults
-------------------------------------
  160:                           
   80:                           
   40:   91            20      26
   20:  249     43     25      28
   15:  356     78     28      25
   10:  162     78     15      16
-------------------------------------
Total:  858    199     88      95  Total Score = 619,455

Club: North Coast Contesters

Comments:

This year my annual trip to the National University of Singapore almost
overlapped with the IARU contest. Since at the same time KM4DAY was visiting
Nanjing university it didn't take much thinking to throw a radio and some wires
in the luggage and do the contest from SE Asia. After some consideration the
choice was between XU and XV. I've always wanted to visit Viet Nam and since
KM4DAY is such a nice person, we agreed to visit XU only to see Angkor Wat with
no radio involved, and spend most of our vacations in Viet Nam. 
The most difficult part - the licensing, turned out to be the easiest. XV4Y
described in detail the licensing procedure and required documents on VARC web
site(varc.radioclub.asia) and XV2A was kind enough to do all of the heavy
lifting associated with getting the license.
We mostly wanted to see the country - well, at least a part of it, and its
people, so the radio activity was limited only to the days immediately before
and after the contest. We spent most of the time in Hoi An, moving further
north, close to Hue only for the contest weekend. The antennas were simple and
didn't take much time to assemble and disassemble. 2 fiberglass poles hosted
interlaced vertical 3-element V-yagis for 10&15 and 20m VDA. The VDA
reflector was also used as a 40m vertical with 2 elevated radials. A loading
coil was used to tune the whole thing on 80.
Upon arrival to the contest location conditions seemed OK although there were
very few EU who made it into the log. The hill just next to our bungalow was
obviously taking its toll. As the contest started, conditions deteriorated and
getting through EU HQ stations was quite a painful experience. As a
compensation though, JAs were plentiful, loud and very well behaved. What came
as the biggest surprise, however, was how easy it was to work the West Coast on
40 with just a simple wire vertical. Granted, there was some serious aluminum on
the other side but considering the overall conditions I wasn't expecting to be
heard there at all.
Towards the end of the contest, my 7-year-old K3 finally developed the infamous
"ERR 12V" problem and the rest of the contest wasn't much fun, having
to pull the PA module in and out every 2-3 minutes. On the positive side -
KM4DAY's Bulgarian vocabulary significantly expanded during these several hours
...
Overall, I had a lot of fun time in the contest (not so much for KM4DAY on the
sideline) and we certainly enjoyed our stay in Viet Nam. We definitely will be
back again as there is so much left to be seen in this beautiful country. Our
sincere thanks to Bac Ai XV2A, Yannick XV4Y and to the very ham-friendly staff
at Vedana Lagoon Resort.

73, Alex LZ4AX


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