[NCC] PJ2T Comments (long)

[Nzharps@aol.com]

Hi NCC,

One last post about the trip to PJ2 and I'll shut my mouth.  Thought you 
might like to hear about some of the highlights and lowlights.

TheTrip with N8BJQ began with an interesting coincidence.  As I was packing 
my stuff into the overhead on our CLE-MIA flight,  a voice from behind said 
"what island are you going to?"  Turned out to be KW8N who was headed to 
KP2A.  We spent the trip to Miami discussing setup details and operating 
strategy.  Things were off to a great start.

BJQ and I met WC4E in Miami and we headed off to PJ2. (That was after bumping 
into the group headed to HI9 and NP2B..it was a regular hamfest).  We were 
surprised to quickly get through customs after we arrived, but that was 
tempered by an agonizing wait in order to pick up our rental car.  Seems as 
though they ran out of cars and we had to settle for a truck instead.  This 
ended up being a godsend as we made good use of it hauling baggage to the 
house.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were filled with return trips to the airport 
to pick up K1AR and W1MD, several antenna projects and station prep.  Rain on 
Thursday forced us to pass on the chance to put up the new 15m USA yagi at 
it's full height.  We ended up tacking it on the side of the 40m tower at 
about 30ft.  It turned out to be a rock crusher to the States.

The contest began with AR on 15 and WC4E on 20.  Within a few minutes the 
computers that we had tried to crash for two days with constant operating 
began to act up.  Log information wasn't moving correctly between station 1 
and 2.  Turned out that RF was getting into the data line.  We determined 
that after changing cables and even changing hubs.  The solution turned out 
to be moving cables physically away from the coax.  In spite of lots of dead 
air time while we rebooted computers, etc (we listened to a recording after 
the contest), AR had a 367 first hour and E had 205. We were off to a shaky 
but good start.

The rest of the contest was a blur of high rate (at one point the "last 10" 
counter on CT was at 1100 on Saturday afternoon) and constant moves of mults 
that called in.  We were a bit disappointed in our 75 and 160 performance.  
Due to high rates we chose to not use a third radio to s/p mults on off 
bands.  That probably cost us on the lower bands.  Being puny weak on 160 was 
another matter and that is currently on the list to be fixed.

We spent almost all of our daylight operating time (before 19z or so) 
operating below the American subbands to stay clear of USA QRM.  We had 
tremendous rates to EU on both 10 and 15 both days without the competition 
from US signals.  Another effect of this strategy was that we basically put 
our US Q's in the bank until later.  When we went above 28300 or 21200 rates 
got even better.  Our combined station hourly rates on Saturday afternoon 
were at or around 600 for several hours.

Sunday saw our rates begin to slow up but we stayed with our Saturday 
strategy of operating below the US band edge and we continued to pound away.  
I have to mention one interesting observation at this point.  I was amazed at 
the numbers of US guys that called us while we were below 21200/28300.  Some 
calls were in the "ooops" category, but a lot of people knew better and were 
willing to take a chance on a citation in order to work the PJ2 mult.  We 
worked no one that called in out of band, but dozens of people tried.

We finished the last 3-4 hours of the contest playing the "also transmitting 
on 28325" game.  We had a great success rate of passing Q's between 10 and 15 
or 15 and 20.  Seems as if lots of folks were willing to help out if 
approached in the right way.

We finished the weekend ahead of our goal of 12,000 Q's and after a feast at 
the airport on Monday afternoon (which included AR, BJQ and me sampling 
stewed goat meat) headed back to the states. 

All in all we had a tremendous time playing radio, hanging out and making 
sure the local beer company (Amstel) stayed in business. I highly recommend 
this activity to one and all. Finally, a huge thanks to W0CG and the CCC for 
use of their station. It is finally getting the recognition it deserves. 

CU in the WW code pileups from K8AZ.

73,
Ron, K8NZ


  

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