[3830] CQ160 CW OH5Z Multi-Op HP

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                    CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW - 2021

Call: OH5Z
Operator(s): OH5CZ OH6XX OH7WV
Station: OH5Z

Class: Multi-Op HP
QTH: 
Operating Time (hrs): 27

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 1480  State/Prov = 24  Countries = 73  Total Score = 769,889

Club: Contest Club Finland

Comments:

CQ 160m CW behind us. Had a lot of fun but also quite many boring hours also. 

For the first time we ran with three independent K3's interlocked on the same
band. Each radio used the same amplifier and transmit antenna and were able to
choose RX antennas regardless of others. Well almost as we have switchable
bi-directional beverages and direction of each beverage is shared with others.
Having three radios on the same band allowed us to have either two RUN stations
listening to different directions and one inband or one RUN station and two
inbands. The latter was the one we used most. 

First four hours of the contest were a lot of fun with 151, 185, 141 and 151
QSO's per hour. Running three stations really paid off. After that we pretty
much had empty band maps and things got a lot slower. Especially because we
didn't have almost any propagation to NA on the first night. Only the big guns
from East coast were worked. Funny phenomena was Floridian stations peaking to
S7 after our sunrise. None other States were heard with similar signals at the
time. Also zone 8 stations were audible and easily worked all night.

On Saturday we heard quite a few DX stations from the East at our sunset but
couldn't log any of them except couple of JA's and and UA9's. HL, XV, HS and
others were heard. Bit frustrating but quite normal. Odd thing was that we
couldn't hear a single BY all weekend. And we tried to listen to many of them.

Sunday night was pretty slow going throughout the whole night. As soon as new
station popped on to band map we were there to listen and call. Still worst
hours were less than 20 QSO's per hour. Luckily NA propagation was a bit better
for us on Sunday morning than it was on Saturday. Propagation was  mostly to
Southern states. Half an hour before hour our sunrise XE2X peaked up to S7
signal was worked on the first call. That was really a nice surprise. The
propagation wasn't good enough for us to get masses us NA station in to the log.


We threw in the towel on Sunday morning as we calculated that we couldn't beat
our old OH record and all three ops had obligations at work on Monday morning.

Overall we were happy about the new station concept for this contest and the
hard work with vertical on the summer paid off. We insulated our vertical,
instead of shunt feeding it, and added some 4km of radial under it. It felt that
we weren't the weakest on the band this time.

73,
Juha OH6XX


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