[3830] CQWW SSB EA5S(@EC5K) SO(A)SB15 HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB - 2020

Call: EA5S
Operator(s): EA5S
Station: EC5K

Class: SO(A)SB15 HP
QTH: 
Operating Time (hrs): 

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:                    
   80:                    
   40:                    
   20:                    
   15: 1558    33      112
   10:                    
------------------------------
Total: 1558    33      112  Total Score = 475,165

Club: 

Comments:

My first option when thinking about the contest back in the summer was to do 40m
from EA5JZ, to try out his new Steppir DB42. However the ongoing issues with the
tower and new antenna meant I started looking at options, and eventually decided
to go back to our local radio club, EA5ELT, from where I did the contest last
year. No low band antennas meant that I'd be most likely doing 20m or perhaps
15.

I headed round to the club a few days before the contest to set up. It was
evening time and a got a few good reports on 15 into the states and south
america. Before cloding down I decided to swing the beam around to make sure
there was no unexpected QRN. And just as well I did, since from between North
and East (the area the covers EU, JA, mid and far east), I had S9+ noise on both
20 and 15m. Disheartened, I headed home and consulted with EC5K. He said to come
round and operate from his place, so after a bit of thinking, I accepted his
offer. I went round the next day and left everything almost ready. The only
thing to decide was which band. A geomagnetic storm was on the way so how would
the higher bands perform? I had had a hard week and wasn't really ready for a
20m slugfest so decided on 15.

I arrived early saturday and had time to do the finishing touches to the voice
keyer and a teamviewer connection to the main position in order to use the
rotator controls from there. In the meantime I worked the first few stations
from far east. It looked promising. Europe however didn´t really materialise
like it should have and I was happy when I swung the high beam over west at
midday and started getting some stateside callers. I kept the lower beam east
though and still managed to get the odd european plus some far east stragglers.
However it wasnt long before the QRN started increasing to levels that made
repeats necessary for most QSOs. Finally the band started closing to N America,
I did the tour of south america (with little to no QRN) and picked up a good
number of QSOs and mults. I finished saturday feeling satisfied if a bit annoyed
with the QRN. It gets very tiring trying to work people through persistent
noise!

Sunday morning I turned up and switched on and N1MM promptly told me there was
no database for my QSOs!! I called Vic for help and between the two of us we
managed to ascertain that my new laptop now saved stuff to the cloud, including
the database I'd opened. Once I found it and copied it into the right folder, we
were almost good to go, except for the moment where I realised I had no clue
where to copy the DVK commands, which had also been erased! Sunday morning
started promising, the K index had dropped to 2 and I was able to work a few JAs
I hadnt heard the day before. Ukraine starting coming in, good, but then it
seemed to fizzle out a bit and I couldn't really get much of a run going at all.
I had the encoder plugged in to use the second receiver, so gave that a bit of a
workout. It seemed there was a black hole in Scandinavia as I needed all the
Baltic countries plus SM, finally they all came through in a huge wave of big
signals and then disappeared as soon as they'd come out of the noise. The QRN on
sunday was worse, normally between an S5 and an S7 on the high beam and a bit
less on the low one. That, together with the poorer propagation, made for a hard
time working stateside but in the end managed to get quite a few more in the
log. 

Victor hadn't planned to enter the contest but seeing there was activity on 10,
we plugged in the stubs and he used the 4 element SteppIr to have some fun. We
also had rookie EA5IUS come round and play on 20 for a while too. Its not like
the good old days at ED5T, but to be honest, there's a lot to be said for using
a station that's in daily use and you don't have that many murphy attacks! 

Thanks to everyone for the QSOs and big thanks to Victor, without whose
generosity I would not have had nearly so much fun.

See you in the CW leg!

Station: Icom 7610
Amp Expert 1,3 (1KW)
Antennas: Momobeam 17 ele tribander (5 ele on 15) plus KLM KT34XA (also 5 ele on
15)
N1MM+ software, which we still love

73 de Duncan EA5S (ex EA5ON)


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