[3830] CQWW CW HB0A M/S HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: HB0A
Operator(s): HB9LCW PA3FGA PC5A
Station: HB0A

Class: M/S HP
QTH: 
Operating Time (hrs): 35

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:  327    14       57
   80:  695    16       76
   40:  971    25       96
   20:  830    24       91
   15:  461    13       46
   10:   20     2       11
------------------------------
Total: 3304    94      377  Total Score = 2,876,397

Club: Bavarian Contest Club

Comments:

TRX: TS870 + KX3 (for RX only)
AMP: OM2500
ANT1: Eantenna 59+ @21M 
ANT2: LZAntenna 30+40 ROTARY DIPOLE @ 22M 
ANT3: FD5 @20M
ANT4: INV-L for 160M


This was going to be another fun activity with minor goals; beat last year's
score or QSO total.
Luckily this time I wasn't travelling alone (like 4 weeks ago). Rens PA3FGA
accompanied me on the 850km one way trip from NL to FL.
Friday we met with Waldemar HB0WR and laid out a BOG towards the
west-north-west. After connecting the KX3 which was going to be used to check
for in band multipliers and do some reconfiguring of N1MM it was almost time to
meet with some HB0A team members to have a traditional pre-contest dinner.

After dinner Rens and I took a 2 hour nap at the airbnb we had booked also last
year and headed to the shack, up the mountain to 1490m asl. There we filled a
chart with the settings for the antenna tuner and amplifier per antenna and per
frequency band.
We started the contest on 160M and logged the first US station after 8 minutes.
Highlight of the two hours we spent there was N7UA from WA zone 3.
The rest of the first night we spent on 80 and 40m until Silvio HB9LCW arrived
for his daytime shift. Silvio operated old-school, used only a bencher paddle
instead of the keyboard to send.. Respect! In the next 9 hours the QSO counter
increased up to 1530 (17 hours into the contest). 15M did not really open...
Rens and I returned at 17Z and started again on 160M, moving to 80 and 40m. On
40M we noticed a weird behavior... It was as if slowly (after several seconds)
the band died and after a while returned. But this seemed to happen mainly on
the weaker signals. First we thought we had a problem with our setup... but
after checking the MUF at http://digisonde.oma.be we saw it was just below 7MHz.
It was the weirdest kind of prop I had experienced so far. Later we asked others
and they had experienced the same thing.
Since Silvio would not return on Sunday we stopped at 03Z and went back to the
house for some rest and returned at 12Z. The plan was to work until 21Z and see
if we could improve our 2017 score.
We first started to check 10M where we managed to work 11 countries and 2 zones.
That increased the score quite a bit.
When we switched to 15M after about an hour it was not really open, just some EU
and SA. We spent another hour on 20M and then returned to 15M. YES, North
America was much much louder and we did almost 150 QSO's in the next hour. Just
before 17Z 15M died, a little later than expected. The QSO count was 2972, our
goal was 3003... to break that was easy and so we did that. The hourly QSO rate
on 20M dropped to 60-70 but we were raking in some nice mults. The ultimate one
was definitely the nicest: KH7B just after 19Z. Rens had been checking on him
for a while and he was slowly getting stronger, but we in EU didn't stand a
chance against the US wall... We decided to let it be and spot him before going
to 40M. We just stayed on his QRG to hear if any stations from EU would try to
work him. We were flabbergasted when we actually heard KH7B call HB0A... hey..
that's us... It took about 2-3 tries before we completed the QSO... WAW. We
looked at each other with big smiles and a high five. Time to move to 40M for
some final fun before packing up. 
It sounded like a zoo after the first skimmer and real spots but I tried my best
to keep the rate up. Surprise surprise.. I heard Japan, short path.. that is
unusual from our location since in that direction the path is blocked by a
mountain ridge that is several hundred meters higher. 8 JA's made it into the
log after I asked EU and NA to standby. Apparently some stations cannot copy
such requests even if you drop the speed to 22 WPM. I am sure those 8 JA's were
quite happy; Monday morning I heard they already had confirmed the QSO's in LotW
;-)
When we finally pulled the plug the QSO counter was stuck at 3303, an increase
of 10% compared to 2017. The score also was higher by more than 10%. That was
really nice. We hadn't expected that, given the poor openings on 15M.
After we had packed everything up we started the descent to our house but...
that took much longer than expected. The fog was so dense we were forced to
drive very slowly. The view was at some places less than 10 meters. One month
ago I drove down that same road with 20-25cm of snow, but this dense fog was
another ATNO for me, hihi.
Monday morning Rens and I dropped off the key of the shack at Waldemar's place
and started the 850km drive back to NL around 09:30 in the morning. In the car
we looked back at this contest and had many smiles on our faces. It was another
FUN weekend in our beloved Liechtenstein (which we visited this year for the 4th
and fifth time).

I hope we were able to hand out this semi rare multiplier from EU to all the
stations who tried to work us.

The next planned activity of HB0A will be the ARRL CW and SSB in Feb/March
(weather permitting).

CU then!

On behalf of the HB0A team
73
-- Aurelio, PC5A


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