[3830] CQWW SSB VU2XE M/2 HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB - 2021

Call: VU2XE
Operator(s): VU2XE VU2HRU VU3SPD VU3NXI
Station: VU2XE

Class: M/2 HP
QTH: 
Operating Time (hrs): 

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:                    
   80:                    
   40:   48     6       28
   20:  329    22       74
   15:  220    19       58
   10:  467    12       52
------------------------------
Total: 1064    59      212  Total Score = 813,271

Club: VU Contest Group

Comments:

This year, I planned to operate at portable location near to salt water. VU2HRU
Harsha- new to HF contesting, VU3SPD Srivatsa- had done casual contests in the
past were two initial members interested in the portable contesting. VU2HRU had
some pointers on a small location next to surfing school area (Mantra Club,
Mulki). As he was natively local, he did some legwork to send photos of location
etc. We finalized the contest entry with VU2XE call couple of weeks before and
also finalized on Multi two format as I had homebrewed W3NQN,VA6AM filters and
triplexers. For antennas I planned to carry my triband VDA (used with good
success in portable ops earlier) and vertical for 40m. Just for getting
directionality on 40m, I had 1/2 wave parasitic element as reflector. 

As newcomers join to contest, I did online presentation to both about the
contest plan, equipments, rules, dos don’ts etc. Our goal was to cross 1500
Qs, but high ambition was to cross 2000 Q mark. A day before contest, VU3NXI
wanted to join and drove down to contest site from Bangalore just in time for
the contest.
Place owner had some cage culture farming of sea bass/Tilapia and was doing some
welding work for new cage frames. Welders were bit raw while drawing power from
the same board as we operated on Saturday causing lot of QRM. Also, it
introduced uncertainty due to voltage drops. So, we had to stop stations
multiple times on first day. They had few CCTV lines along with LED flood lights
to look after cages, which they obliged to take down for the duration of the
contest. Public Park next to the shack area also had LED flood light which was
disconnected. This reduced QRM from 58 to 52  level on lower bands.
We setup two stations and planned to use triplexer+BPF during the day and two
BPFs at night. First day during the morning session, briefing to hams on how to
dive into crowded band, timing of the call, changing bands with filters in line
etc. was done. To be in control if we generate pileup is key to any contest. We
were thus prepared and got into slow start. VU3NXI joined few hours into the
contest with a KX3 and 200W amp (replacing IC718 for second station). Main
station had TS590 with W6PQL amp. 
On first day of contest, we did not find much luck on 20m, but 10m showed big
signs. With SFI more than 100, I was hoping for such openings and 10m band
became our main source for high speed rapid QSOs for short durations. At night
we hoped for 40m to churn good number of QSOs, but our signals were not getting
through on both days. So we did poorly on that band. On first day evening just
when we should be starting 20m opening to EU and NA at 11:30Zulu, we lost power
due to Welding workers burning the mains switch board. We decided to rent 5KVA
generator for rest of the ops and it was setup to restore ops only by 15 Zulu.
Probably, it was a critical aspect we shall consider in future.
We had some slow QSO rates with S&P through out. Our short runs were limited
to 10m on first day and 10 and 20 on second day. We had a new student ham VU3GCP
visiting us for knowing about the antennas, ops etc. Hopefully sometime in near
future, we can see his contest entries.
We had nice opening to Brazil on both 20m and 15m bands. Worked many US stations
on both days. Cycle 25 is really helping DX on higher bands and hopefully we can
churn more QSO s in upcoming contests. On the first day, I also got high SWR
issues on 10m High power Filter. Fortunately, I had carried a coax short stub
line to operate 40m, I opened the stub to turn into favor of 10m band operation
and used the stub for simultaneous 15m and 10m operation via triplexer. This
turned to be major decision as 10m was our juice for both days!.
All in all we did little over 1050 Qs which team found good experience. We have
achieved our goals of getting new contesters in the rink and hope they will
start making some serious attempts in the upcoming years. 
Following is the score summary:
Band     QSOs     Pts  	ZN   	Cty
     7      48    117   6	28 
    14     329    925   22   	74 
    21     220    599   19   	58 
    28     467    1360  12   	52
 Total    1064    3001  59  	212
Score: 8,13,271

See you in the next one 
VU2XE


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