[CCF] CQWW SSB 2008 OH8X (OH4JFN)

[marko.holmavuo at dnainternet.net]

Contest         : CQ World Wide DX Contest
Callsign        : OH8X
Operators       : OH4JFN
Mode            : PHONE
Category        : Single Operator (SO)
Band(s)         : All bands (AB)
Class           : High Power (HP)


  BAND   QSO  CQ DXC DUP  POINTS   AVG
--------------------------------------
   160   251  11  54   1     289  1.15
    80   339  20  72   7     456  1.35
    40   424  28  90   3     636  1.50
    20  2945  38 114  56    6276  2.13
    15   578  31  89   2    1318  2.28
    10    15   6  12   0      24  1.60
--------------------------------------
TOTAL  4552 134 431  69    8999  1.98
======================================
        TOTAL SCORE : 5 084 435

Dupes are not included in QSO counts neither avg 
calculations

OH8X is located in far north where ms. Aurora are taking 
care of us. Despite of that Arcala Extreme mission is to 
challenge well known north-south
winning theory.

During 2008 a lot of things has changed in Radio Arcala. 
Huge amount of things has been trimmed with new technology 
innovations to get usability of
this very complex environment to high competitive level. A 
lot of rework and redesign has been made based on deep 
analyzes based on all
gathered data and measurements from earlier OH8X 
architechtural phases. Huge amount of  cross science 
competencies has been needed to make this one of the
most impressive station to alive. You can see some more 
information from http://www.radioarkala.com/
(Those who are waiting to read more information about 160 
and 80 super antennas, no I didn't use them yet :))

I am happy to say that technically whole CQ WW SSB 2008 
operation was a succee. No fatal failures and all 
different layers of this concept worked like a
charm, full 48h!!. Usability for all these innovations 
like superior touch-screens was excelent and doing full 
48h was a piece of cake.
This wouldn't be possible without a huge huge amount of 
work to get everyting on track.

When starting to desing operating plans and setting goal 
for year 2008 I went back to year 2000 to break down parts 
how current OH-record was constructed.
There where three major issues that made me worry about:

a) design of new antennas for 160 and 80 are under final 
adjustment. When looking OH8X location and trying to 
understand how low band works, you
easily understand that in normal conditions you aren't at 
competitive edge compared to southern stations. This is 
bad, because 20m is workhorse from OH8X
and you have to make decisions to work low bands because 
of new rare mults with lower point-rate or upper bands 
with (at least expected) good US-runs.

b&c) If OH8X will fail to achieve propagation on 10/15 
there will be huge problems at first because of mults and 
secondly because nowadays 20m is so full,
that during EU-primetime it makes life quite hard there. A 
pile of stacked stations on same frequency and you don't 
need to dream to find rare multipliers
if those are loud or answers to your CQ.

After now, I have to say that pre-contest analyzes was 
something that realized quite well. Low bands were very 
very hard and you had to work hard.
You didn't get anything for a free. We had some very heavy 
storm during weekend including static rain. It made 
periodical 59+ noise aswell, so no mercy!

What suprised my was excelent (but too short) opening to 
JA and USA on 15m and some very very short opening to Asia 
on 10m. At least in OH8, I had some 10min slot
where some asian stations were workable....nothing else.

In overall two hours with more than 220q is not bad in 
this time of solar cycle, but to get balance I had more 
than enough very very low rated night-time hours.
I didn't managed to claim even close to new OH-record, but 
when looking back what Timo OH1NOA said after CQWW SSB 
2000 I think that at least one goal might be possible
to achieve: Timo ran 4536q which is highest single-op qso 
count from main OH-land and now 8 years later more than 
that achieved. It will be a huge thrill when
more sunspots appears...you just kind imagine what kind 
score levels will be achieved generally.

Again, competition in TOP 5 Eu is tight, congrats to ES5TV 
(huge huge huge effort), DL6FBL at SV9CVY and for G4PIQ at M6T.
What comes to CU2X where Toni exploded the european record 
to totally new levels...excelent job! It seems that we 
have still some work to do
to switch north-south theory upside down :)

Thanks to whole Arcala extreme-team and specially to 
OH2UA, OH6KN and OH8NC.

73 Marko OH4JFN