[CCF] CQWW SSB OH8X(OH6KZP) SOAB HP

[Kim Östman]

Hianot kelit varsinkin yläbandeilla, tällä kertaa kunto petti!

---------------------

                     CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB

Call: OH8X
Operator(s): OH6KZP
Station: OH8X

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: Arkala
Operating Time (hrs): 41
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
  Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
   160:  145     8       42
    80:  208    22       66
    40:  383    27       89
    20: 1480    37      105
    15: 1511    40      124
    10: 1150    37      114
------------------------------
Total: 4877   171      540  Total Score = 7,787,583

Club: Contest Club Finland

Comments:

Great band conditions on Saturday. I was pretty much QRT all of the previous
solar maximum, so experiencing this was good fun. I had never imagined that
even the silent band known as 10m could be so crowded.

The station worked well without any hickups, and once I got past my initial
first-hour confusion with some of the SO2R features of Win-Test, operating
began to run smoothly. Focused a lot on moving multipliers, which paid off
thanks to the nice people willing to move bands.

I set out to break the current OH record, with a goal of about 8.6M. Things
looked quite promising score-wise at 1000 UTC on Sunday when I was at 6.3M,
only 200kpts from the record. I updated my goal to 10M, which looked  
achievable
based on all the curves I had drawn and was using for follow-up.

However, the afternoon arrival of the CME/aurora, coupled with failure of the
OH6KZP "engine," dashed that hope. All the unrelenting pressure and stress
related to other things appear to finally have caught up with me this weekend:
I had gone to bed around 1830 UTC on Friday, but was not able to sleep  
for more
than a few minutes, so basically the game was lost already before it started.
Anyway, I planned to get a couple of hours of sleep early Sunday  
morning, so it
would all be ok.

Well, come Sunday morning and I decide to keep on going to maximize the score
in the pre-CME conditions. During the day I developed a fever (> 38C) and
increasing levels of angst, making the operating inefficient at times. At 17
UTC I decided to take a shower and see if I could sleep off the fever. When
waking up at 19 UTC it was still there all the same, and coupled with some
minor arrythmia, I decided it would be better to live to tell the story than
die trying to continue it; a sad thing when 15m was bubbling with signals, but
you have to respect the engine's physical limits when they slap you in the
face. In any case, this weekend showed that >6000Q and >10Mpts is  
possible from
OH land in CQWW SSB.

Many thanks to OH6KN for all the help with logistics, OH8NC for the cheering,
both of them for letting me use their fine station, OH2UA for SO2R help with
Win-Test, and OH1WZ for help with propagation forecasting. And thanks to all
for the QSOs and for moving to other bands in the hunt for  
multipliers. A great
weekend!

73
Kim OH6KZP