[3830] SAC SSB SM0W SOAB HP

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                    Scandinavian Activity Contest, SSB

Call: SM0W
Operator(s): SM0W
Station: SM0W

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: Stockholm
Operating Time (hrs): 19.5

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
   80:  298    42
   40:  442    51
   20:  388    55
   15:   82    32
   10:    8     6
-------------------
Total: 1218   186  Total Score = 488,250

Club: Worldwide Young Contesters

Comments:

I prepared well for this contest! SO2R setup was finished week prior to the
Contest. All systems ready to go, so the only thing I needed to do on saturday
prior to the Contest was wait! This is very unusual but preferable for the
blood preassure not running around like crazy doing last minute fixes before
the bell sounds!

On thursday my family declared themselves sick and on friday It had also
reached me, soar troath and fever. I decided I am not going to miss this one,
will just have to beat it out!

I had to drive to the station already on friday evening because the road would
be blocked by a big orienteering competition just beside the station. There
were 5000 orienteerers running around in the forest beside the station. I had
some trouble on 15m with nice coming from the direction where they built their
temporary "areena" on a field 500m away. Unfortunately that was due
South making it even more difficult hearing the weak signals on 15 in this
Contest!

Propagation was really challenging, I have never experienced this bad
propagation in SAC Contest, it was a struggle all the way. The planned run
sheet went straight into the garbage and improvision play started, maximise
rate and catch the short openings on the different bands. As an extra bonus to
the bad prop the low bands was really noicy with QRN. Beverages was a big help
but directivity was defenetly affected by the auroras prior to the Contest and
during. I worked TX3X on 80 one afternoon week prior to the Contest and their
signal was the same strength what ever beverage i listned to! This was a new
type of propagation behaviour I have never experienced in conjunction with
aurora!

10m was really interesting. There was some sort of propagation to the indian
ocean/ arabic peninsula and South africa. Stations from there was really
strong. Other stations Heard or worked was by Troop Scatter and i also belive
Meteor Scatter. 

Running SO2R in this type of conditions is a must, most of the Contest I was
running Dual-CQ on two bands to keep the rate up, but it is really hard when
signal levels are so low!

Although I had a bad cold (in the evening although there was 40 deg celcius in
the schack I was freezing) I managed to stay awake to 3 AM, then I had to go
sleep after CQing for one hour on two bands with not one single QSO. I started
again at 7 AM, overslept a little bit and missed some mults on 80 and 40.

Thanks to everybody that called in! CU next year!

73 de Teemu SM0W


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