[3830] CQ160 CW OH5Z Multi-Op HP

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                    CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW

Call: OH5Z
Operator(s): OG9X OH5TS OH6XX
Station: OH5Z

Class: Multi-Op HP
QTH: 
Operating Time (hrs): 34.5

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 1205  State/Prov = 16  Countries = 67  Total Score = 529,789

Club: Contest Club Finland

Comments:

Another eventful contest weekend behind us. Arrived to Chicken Booth (as we call
the contest station) on Friday evening thinking everything is working great
after CQWW CW. Well many things were.

The conditions were great to JA before the beginning of the contest. The condx
dropped around half an hour before but the conditions to other directions
continued to be good. First night netted us some nice mults like HK, HC and ZL.
Also K9AY was worked from WI which is quite west from us. Unfortunately we
discovered that our East/West switchable beverage wasn't working and we lost
our main transmit antenna few hours into contest. Luckily OH5TS and OH5NQ had
repaired one of the guy wire verticals so we had at least some transmit antenna
during the first night. We netted about 500 Q's in the first night.

When day broke after few hours sleep we fixed the main transmit antenna. The
problem was a flashed over UHF barrel connector near the vertical where the
7/8" coax is connected to RF choke made of RG213. Unfortunately we
couldn't fix the beverage as the 300m+ coax has s short circuit somewhere along
the line and couldn't find the spot before sunset. Thus we didn't have any RX
antennas during the contest which obviously cost us some QSOs.

Second night started quite ok until 00Z where the doldrum started. Until that
we had 40-50Q's per hour but after 00Z till 07Z we got 16-18Q's/h even we were
sitting two operating most of the time. One guy pressing F1 and another
scanning the band for new stations. The conditions were lot worse during second
night towards NA and we only netted 5 new states and a handful of station.
Basically we had only the sunrise peak 30 minutes before sunrise when we could
work NA.

Sunday afternoon OH5TS continued alone courageously to the end of contest
netting 150Q's and few multipliers. Basically running the same 17Q's/h as we
did after 00Z.

Anyway we now know the weak points of the station and will continue in
developing it. Especially the RX part needs to be improved before next autumn
and winter.

73,
Juha OH6XX on behalf of OH5Z
https://oh5z.wordpress.com/


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