[3830] CQWW CW YN2SX(N2BA) SOSB(A)/40 HP

[webform at b4h.net]

CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: YN2SX
Operator(s): N2BA
Station: YN2SX

Class: SOSB(A)/40 HP
QTH: Nicaragua
Operating Time (hrs): 32

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:    1     1        1
   80:    1     1        1
   40: 2509    35      128
   20:   11     7       10
   15:   45    10       12
   10:  113     9        9
------------------------------
Total: 2509    35      128  Total Score = 999,353

Club: Frankford Radio Club

Comments:

I want to thank my host Octavio (YN2N); his station was great and both he and
his wife were of tremendous help, not only with the station but also meals and
support before and during the contest. 

BTW, his station is for sale if anyone is interested; I think it is a great
value and I love Nicaragua as a place to visit and a few friends have found it
to be a good place to retire, at least for part of the year.

The station consists of two 60’ towers although only one is in use on which
is an A-3. On 40 he had a 2 element fixed quad at EU, and NE USA, a 3 element
wire yagi to the NW good for west coast and JA, and a dipole. He has dipoles
for 80 and 160.

As I landed in Managua on Thanksgiving day Hurricane Otto was making landfall
on the Atlantic coast at Bluefields and a earthquake off the Pacific coast put
up a tsunami warning. As a student at Rutgers in 1972 Walt (K2WK) and I manned
the Rutgers ham station (WA2NPP) for more than a week doing relief efforts for
the Managua earthquake. I wondered if I'd be doing something similar but from
their side, but both the storm and the quake proved to be duds! So, it was
contest time.

My original idea was to go all band high power assisted using my Expert 1K-FA.
However, customs impounded it, and even though Telcor wrote a specific letter
asking them to let the amp through they refused and gave neither a reason nor
an idea of a proper way of doing it. Worse yet, the charged $90 for storage and
a “re-export” license.

Rather than go low-power all-band I decided to go 40 M high power assisted
using Octavio’s Drake L-4B. This was a good choice. After spending Friday
fighting the bureaucracy I didn’t have the head or energy to go without
sleep. 40 went strong the first night and opened early both Saturday and
Sunday. I was operating assisted but I doubt I can attribute 3 mults to it. My
big mistake was that I ignored lots of packet spots the first day from big
stations that I thought would either call me or that I could pick up the second
day and yet few did call and there were lots of stations that did not make an
appearance Saturday night. I guess I can’t blame them; I didn’t call many
stations either.

Sunday afternoon I worked some stations on 15 and 10 but the pileups were so
horrendous it actually wasn't any fun. Worked TI5W on all 6 bands one after
another because we were so close we could hear each other easily, even on 160.

All-in, I had a blast and Octavio’s antennas worked great. Hope he keeps
renting it or sells it to someone who does.

73,

Brooke

P.S. I put a lot of work into making my QRZ.com listing fun to read and a
number of people wrote to say they enjoyed it. Check it out:
https://www.qrz.com/db/YN2SX


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