[3830] ARRLDX CW TO4A(VE3DZ) SOAB HP

[webform at b4h.net]

                    ARRL DX Contest, CW - 2020

Call: TO4A
Operator(s): VE3DZ
Station: FM5BH

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: Martinique
Operating Time (hrs): 44
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:  494    53
   80:  894    60
   40: 1385    61
   20: 1384    61
   15:  934    56
   10:  117    29
-------------------
Total: 5208   320  Total Score = 4,996,800

Club: Contest Club Ontario

Comments:

It was my first visit to Martinique, and my first ever operation from FM-land. A
lot of people already operated from FM5BH and I don’t know what took me so
long to finally come here.  FM5BH’s station is situated on a small city
property therefore has limits in regards of space for antennas, but it is pretty
well suited for SO2R Contesting. Two radios and two amps are connected to a
Tribander at about 50 feet through the high power Triplexer and Band Pass
filters made by LBS.
I had a pleasure to experience a great hospitality of Laurent and his wife
Micheline and I have to admit that I was truly amazed by the amount of work that
has been done by him to squeeze all these antennas into his tiny lot. His
dedication and love to HAM Radio should without a doubt be recognized and serve
as a great example to those of us who always complaining about lack of space,
proximity to neighbors, not enough time etc. His work is a true inspiration (to
me, at least). Anything can be done, you just need to do something! 
By the way - in case you don't know - this is the station where so-called 2BSIQ
technique was invented and first time executed!
I arrived few days in advance with a lot of time to play and get used to the
station. Rental car allowed me to explore the island and local beaches. Laurent
gave me a lot invaluable tips and head-ups and I also grateful to Al Crespo,
NH7A for tons of information he e-mailed to me.
I was spending mornings and evenings making contacts and testing setup and
antennas, and was usually off to exploring the island in a daytime.
I also had a privilege to meet with FM5WD, FM5DN and FM1LV at the dinner
organized by Laurent and his XYL Micheline one of the evenings prior to the
Contest. All three are very active HAMs, and FM5WD and FM5DN I know for a long
time, since I probably became a HAM, so it was a big pleasure to meet with these
“legends”.
All played well and fianlly after taking short nap on Friday afternoon I started
the Contest at 8 P.M. local time Friday night. 
By that time 20 meters were almost dead with few barely audible signals so I
decided to start on 40 and 80. Signals on 40 were so strong and I felt pretty
loud despite a bit higher SWR in the CW portion of 40 m band in the newly
installed AD2334 Beam. 
Everybody would agree that no matter how hard and long you practice your SO2R
skills, there is always some kind of a learning curve needed when you operate
from the new station. And real time Contesting is never anything like having
training before the Contest…
It takes time to get adjusted to unfamiliar radios, switching system, amplifier
tunings and even computer in the fast paced environment. Going forward, I
confess that I developed the intended full 2BSIQ operation only by Saturday
evening,  i.e. about half time into the Contest...
Right from the start I noticed that using Dual CQing mode slows down the
switching between 2 entry windows in N1MM+. I couldn't understand on the fly
what is causing it - either it was my tiny keyboard (I was using N1MM on a
single computer in 2 keyboards mode), latest version of N1MM Plus, or the
computer itself. I saw that  there was a new parameter which I didn't see before
appeared in the N1MM menu: "Dual CQ delay time". I tried to change the
values of it on the fly, but it didn't seem to have any impact on the actual
delay.  It looked like this: I would enter a call in the call sign window and
hit Enter, but the computer would start sending a message with a couple of
seconds delay.  In most cases it would be already too late and the op on the
other end would start to call again which would all result in unnecessary
repeats and delays. I can imagine how that would piss off the guys on the other
end.
So, when the rates were high (200+) I decided to first send a call by hand while
entering it onto the program manually. :-) And then hit enter to end the QSO.
Kind of complicated but seemed to help in some way.
Other than that everything were going pretty normal – usual 200+ rate in the
first few hours, even the usual noise disappeared at night, and by 12:00 UTC
(1/4 into the Contest) I was at around 1,800 QSO’s. 
And that’s when the first surprise happened. After finishing the 80 m after
sunrise I moved one of the radios to 20m, but there was … nothing.  I mean I
heard some big gun EU stations working NA, but I couldn’t hear any of the W or
VE. I tried to S&P, then call CQ – nothing. First W/VE I heard in about
half of an hour was VY2TT and could barely manage a QSO. I was still making
contacts on 40 with the 2nd radio, but the rate suffered big time. I finally
found a clear frequency above 14060 and started to call CQ and even had few
stations calling me time-to-time, but I just couldn’t get it going with the
decent rate. All signals were pretty weak, barely readable at a noise level.
Later I switched to 15 m hoping that it would pick up sooner (sometimes it
happens from this part of the World that signals from U.S. are stronger on 15
than on 20 in the morning), but it was even worse than 20… I tired doing
S&P’ing, but quickly quit after few unsuccessful attempts to explain my
TO4A to the CQ’ing station.
I was suffering like this for good 3 hours and that’s when I realized I will
probably not be able to win this Contest. :-)
Only around 16:00 UTC the 15 m were starting to show the signs of improvements,
and so were 20 meters. The rates again started to approach to 200/hr. but
previous 4 slow hours really affected the score.
I was constantly checking 10 meters on a 2nd radio during the whole day, even
tried to call CQ several times, but the band was dead as a post…
Later 40 meters were strong again and 20 stayed open longer than on Friday. I
had pretty decent run until very late at night when I started to realize that
I’m falling asleep in the chair making sometimes 4-5-6 minutes gap between the
QSO’s. Finally shortly after 05 UTC the fatigue took over and I decided to
take a couple of hours nap though the bands were still pretty strong. Obviously
those morning slow hours really did hurt my motivation…
After waking up I still needed some time to get in shape, but the bands were
already slow until something like 10-11 A.M. when people were beginning to wake
up.
Saturday morning situation repeated itself on Sunday morning with only exception
that the slow hours ended a bit sooner with 15 meters opened earlier. 
I stopped checking 10 meters when the rates on 15 and 10 increased again and I
would probably miss the opening on 10 meters at all if not for K3LR operator who
called me on my 15 m run frequency and asked me to move to 10 because it was
open. I did and … OMG! … the band was full of stations! I had very nice run
on 28010 for about 30-35 minutes after which everyhting started to fade away. I
still managed to make more than 117 QSO’s, but I think I lost the peak time of
the opening.  In any case I’m grateful to K3LR 15 m op (don’t know who it
was) for alarming me and saving from embarrassment of missing the 10 meters.
Though my low bands numbers are pretty decent despite using simple antennas, I
lost big time on 20 and 15 meters to 8P5A, V47T and KP2M and I now I need to
analyze why and how…
I was trying to move mults all the time, but that didn’t work very well. Only
guys like VO2AC and VE9CB were always helpful and willing to go extra mile. Very
few others would agree to move, but either the needed band would be closed or
the signal would be too weak. But I really grateful to those who tried for me.
VY0ERC called me on 2 bands. I see that I missed relatively easy mults: ME, DE,
NM and OK on 10 m, VE5, VO2, VO1 and WY – on 15.
On 160 I think it would have been possible to work VE7, VO1, VO2,  ND, NE and
SD, but for some reasons I didn’t…
But all in all, I am pretty happy with my score. Had quite a few nice runs and
the station did pretty solid job, no failures of hardware. The noise level was
either non-existent or tolerable throughout the Contest. But the most important,
it was nice to return to Caribbean for this Contest after some absence and be on
the other side of the pile-up again. 
Thanks again to FM5BH for inviting me and let it happen!
Congrats to Tom 8P5A, Andy V47T and Phil KP2M on their high scores. All of them
are well deserved! Truly amazing story from Andy V47T - that’s what real
Contesting is all about!
Thank you all for the QSO’s and good luck to everyone who will participate in
the SSB leg.
Thanks for reading my rather long story.


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