[CCF] ARRLDX CW OH6QU SOSB/15 HP

[oh6qu at netikka.fi]

                     ARRL DX Contest, CW

Call: OH6QU
Operator(s): OH6QU
Station: OH6QU

Class: SOSB/15 HP
QTH: Maalahti
Operating Time (hrs): 14

Summary:
  Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
   160:
    80:
    40:
    20:
    15:  111    30
    10:
-------------------
Total:  111    30  Total Score = 9,990

Club: Contest Club Finland

Comments:
The prime time openings on 15 M between Finland and North America around 
13-15 UTC were disappointments on both days – during these openings I 
was able to make only less than 20 QSOs altogether. Luckily there were 
minor magnetic disturbances at the end of both UTC days which were just 
a right type of disturbances triggering the Polar Path over the North 
Pole to open between Northern EU and North America. More than 75 % of my 
contest QSOs are made via the Polar Path openings at 20 – 23 UTC.

The Polar Path and disturbed conditions were favoring the southern part 
of North America. Most of my QSOs are made with stations located to the 
south of line North Carolina to California. Texas, Florida and Arizona 
are the most common states in my log. However I am surprised how many 
Californian stations (11) managed to find their way into my log as well. 
I guess I missed half of the northern US states completely. The only 
“easy” northern US state was Wisconsin to which I had about one hour 
pipeline open on Sunday evening allowing me to log W0AIH, W9XT, N9CK and 
K9IMM. The only Canadian I worked in the contest, is VE3JM. The other 
Canadian I heard couple of times was VY2TT but he was too quick in his 
moves to catch.

During the Polar Path openings NR5M was my beacon to see if the band is 
open or not. Most of the times he came as a first one from the noise, 
and he was the last one to disappear. K3LR was the other one I used as 
propagation indicator but because of his northern location, he wasn’t as 
loud as NR5M and he was audible much shorter times. The loudest station 
I heard was K4PV on Sunday around 21 UTC. He was the only North American 
during the contest moving my S-meter to the dB-scale.

Now someone needs to figure out what are the preconditions for the Polar 
Path openings on 15 M. During the contest I was monitoring closely 
Earth’s magnetic field measurements in the Northern Finland via internet 
and there were always certain changes when NR5M came out of noise 
indicating that the Polar Path has opened. This needs to be investigated 
more…

The contest setup was FTdx5000 + OM2500A / 1.5 kW and 3 x Hy-Gain TH7DX.

CU in next year!
Jari OH6QU & OG6A
https://www.qrz.com/db/OH6QU/




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