[3830] CQWW CW PA3FYM SOSB(A)/160 HP

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CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: PA3FYM
Operator(s): PA3FYM
Station: PA3FYM

Class: SOSB(A)/160 HP
QTH: Zaltbommel
Operating Time (hrs): 29

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160: 1008    21       86
   80:                    
   40:                    
   20:                    
   15:                    
   10:                    
------------------------------
Total: 1008    21       86  Total Score = 127,330

Club: 

Comments:

Building up the station was somewhat stressy this year because of
work obligations. With the help of Karel PA1RLM and of course Richard PA7FA
everything was ready Friday afternoon.

A few 'Murphy moments' were encountered. I will elaborate on two of them.

1. I had severe QRM on two reversible Beverages when switching voltages were
applied. After thorough inspection in the field it appeared that (presumably)
rats chewed on the ~200m long H155 coax feedline. The cable was damaged on
several places. With some tricks the feedline was repaired in situ.

2. Saturday afternoon it appeared I caused serious RFI on a television 
of the neighbours. The television was fed with DSL. 
We managed to solve the issue to some extend but not completely. 
It appeared that the television already had problems with 10W output (?!).

As a Dutch saying states: "It's better to have a good neighbour than 
a far friend", the tough decision was made to quit contesting until the 
neighbours went to bed. Presumable cause may be the uplink band segment
of the DSL provider, being around 2 MHz. 

In other words, I lost five hours and had to miss the Greyline towards Asia 
Saturday evening. My attempt to break the Dutch 160m record forth in a row
unfortunately failed :-(

Conditions were poor in my opinion and few US stations were worked.
Sunday evening some JA's went into the log, as well as HS0ZIA.

During the contest I took some notes, on which I may elaborate later. 

One of them is working 'DX' or 'remote multipliers'. 
>From EU side it's very hard to work them because of the relatively 
enormous amount of stations calling. I've to blame myself, because I'm 
calling too. 

My advice for DX stations is to 'invert' the situation: consider EU
as DX. Do S&P from your remote location, I reckon you'll be able to 
work more EU stations. The time frames for propagation towards EU
are predictable, so why nog giving it a try in next contests?

The other side of the story is also true. A Brazilian station was 
audible for hours but was not able to copy greedy EU stations, including me. 

Summarizing: I had a great time with some hurdles, but the results are ok.

Station: IC-7800
Antennas: TX: 30m long shunt fed T-antenna
          RX: 2 x 220m rev Beverages for NE, SW, NW and SE.
              1 x 130m rev Beverage for E and W
              2 x remodelled and optimised K9AY-loops for 160m
          Diversity reception when in running mode, i.e. Bev's left and 
          loops right ear.

Many thanks to Richard PA7FA and Marion for their friendship and hospitality!

Remco PA3FYM


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