[3830] CQWW CW XV2D SOAB(A) HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: XV2D
Operator(s): SM6LRR
Station: XV2D

Class: SOAB(A) HP
QTH: Mui Ne
Operating Time (hrs): 34

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:    0     0        0
   80:  231    20       52
   40:  749    30       84
   20:  501    31       79
   15: 1020    32       91
   10:  142    21       45
------------------------------
Total: 2648   134      351  Total Score = 2,621,425

Club: 

Comments:

This was really a nice experience!

Contesting during family vacation has challenges for sure, so my first thanks
goes to my wife Ekaterina and to my daughters Elena and Anna for having
patience with me both before and during the contest.

The timing of our vacation was of course partly aligned with CQWW CW, I must
confess...  My initial plan was to participate in a Single 40 effort, but the
closer I got to the departure, the more wild my thoughs became. I had purchased
a nice hexbeam for this type of operation and the initial idea was to bring that
one. However, due to some considerations, I decided to get 4 Spiderbeam poles
(12 meters) and started planning with different options. Main idea wad to have
3 element Vertical Dipole Arrays for the three higher bands and a vertical for
40 and something for 80. This location is not ideal at all for high antennas on
low bands due to absence of high fixing points, so a dipole for 80 at 10 meters
was my ultimate idea in order to at least work some JA and Asian multipliers. I
had no other ambitions with such an antenna.

After realizing that the wind from the Pacific Ocean is VERY strong at this
time, I skipped the idea of VDAs for 15 and 20 meters. It is simply to
challenging to fix the three elemnts in right position to be efficient when
wing speed is above 20 meters per second. 

The equipment ended up to be like this:

10 meters - 3 element VDA at 5 meters average height
15 meters - my 1/4 wave for 40 meters with just 2 resonant radials for 40
20 meters - started in begging of contest with VDA, but ended up with vertical
dipole
40 meters - 1/4 wave vertical with 2 resonant radials. Approximately 30 meters
from the sea
80 meters - Inverted Vee on 12 meter Spiderbeam Pole

Yes, you can see that I started with the VDA for 20 meters, but it did not
perform well, and my next plan was to keep the driven element and move the
spiderbeam closer to water. This is good for some aspects of course, but I did
not have time to really seal evenything in a perfect way, so after some  time,
the antenna simply showed greater SWR than my Expert Amp Tuner could handle. I
tried to find the reasons for this during 2-3 hours, taking down antenna in the
storm alone, almost falling into a small pond when stepping back and holding the
spiderbeam... Man, that must have been a sight - especially if all of me had
fallen in instead of just one foot and leg.

The reason for the problem with the vertical dipole was that salt water had
found its way to the SO 239 connector and it took me some time to realize that
the salt had shortcircuited the contact and when power was applied, it had for
sure created some black colour and smell I did not pay attention to when trying
to find the problems (looking on PL contacts on cables mainly).

Anyway, after some 5-6 hours of total antenna repair activity (VDA for 10
meters broke twice due to ropes that were cut as result of wind movements), I
finally got back in the chair.

My aim fr the contest was to beam E21EIC's SOAB HP (A) record from 2009, but
with challenges described above, I guess this record will still remain. My
claimed score is higher but a miracle should save me from keeping the lead
after log checking. We will see...

Radio (TS 590S), amplifier (Expert 1.3 K-FA), winkeyer and computer (Win-Test)
worked perfect, with one exception - internet connection. Yes, I was assisted
but really this assistance was very seldom working, so maybe I should have
chosen unassisted. But that Zone 26 record was even more difficult, so the
choice was made for Assisted in this contest anyhow.

15 and 40 meters were the best.  !0 was a true disappointment and was also very
noice on 10 meters for some reason. Nver had any good runs there.

80 meters was the big surprise!  Even with such simple antenna as Inv Vee at 10
meter in West-East direction, I was able to have good runs even to Europe and
the US. Distances to both locations is close to 9000 km, so surprising what a
small antenna like that can do. My respect for all you guys having patience to
probably not listen to a very strong signal at time from here.

All in all, great fun and thanks to everyone for calling in.  Most pleasant
contacts were double multipliers with ZD8W on first 40 meters, and then on 20!
Also a late contact with FR/OH2YL gave a well needed mult on 40.

73 de Mats XV2D (also SM6LRR & RM2D)


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