[SCCC] CQWW SSB OA4O(N5ZO) SOAB HP

[marko.n5zo at gmail.com]

                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB - 2025

Call: OA4O
Operator(s): N5ZO
Station: OA4O

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: Lima, Peru
Operating Time (hrs): 46
OpMode: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:    1     1        1
   80:   11     8       10
   40:  539    27       67
   20: 1329    36      103
   15: 1006    29       88
   10: 2059    32      102
------------------------------
Total: 4945   133      371  Total Score = 6,987,960

Club: Southern California Contest Club

Comments:

This was my 40th and last zone to complete reverse WAZ in CQ WW DX contests.  As it was last zone, there wasn’t too many options to find station to operate from.
Fortunately old friend Olli OH0XX/ex OA4WW and Pablo ex OA4AI from Spain helped me and inquired from Radio Club Peruano OA4O in Lima about possibility to use club’s station for my operation.
Soon enough club’s president Oscar OA4AMN confirmed that club would provide station for me and Aurelio OA4AZP and David OA4YX would help me to get set up for contest.  

I flew to Lima well ahead the contest arriving week before and on Monday met with Aurelio and David and had access to RCP station.  I had rented airBnB apartment walking distance from the station.  Station is in center of Lima near financial district in high end residential area.  It is in old airport building and actual OA4O radio station is located in old airport tower.  There was very good Peruvian restaurant also in same compound which operated every day except Monday for lunch and afternoon.  It is very popular and got packed by local customers every day.  OA4O station is quite well equiped and I had 2 IC-7610 radios, 2 Acom 2000A amps and 2 DB-36 SteppIR antennas in 2 separate towers, albeit very close to each others.  There was also 80 m loop antenna, bottom of it very close to roof of the building and no 160 m antenna.  There was one set of separate band pass filters for one station and I had built switching system which I brought with me to use those for one radio and I brought another 6 band bandpass filter with me for other radio and an antenna tuner + other gear for SO2R station.  Unfortunately those SteppIRs were quite close to each others and there was quite a bit hash from one radio to the other in most band combinations, so efficient use of 2nd radio was limited.  But biggest issue at the station was neighborhood urban noise in middle of 15M people city and especially low bands 160-40 m were very noisy (S9).  On high bands noise was bit less and different, sounding more like powerline noise from all directions. 
Noise was not surprise to me at all, and I had been warned about it.  There was no way to use both SteppIR’s in same time on same band (with one radio).  I should have brought stackmatch with me, it would probably have worked overall better just to use one radio and be able to beam both US and EU in same time and that would be what I would do if I would operate there again, instead of compromised SO2R.  I decided to not do anything for 160 and just to use existing
80 m antenna and take my chances with it.  There really wasn’t too much room for new antennas and there was also several cellular mobile operators antennas on compound some of those in same tower as one of the DB36 antennas was, so I did not feel like stretching new wires at already very busy rooftop.  

During the week before the contest I did few hundred CW QSOs with my own call OA4/N5ZO and also got on for 2 CWT sessions.  Interestingly I got quite good signal reports but I always felt that signals I heard were somewhat muted. 
I’m quite familiar with 7610 radio as I have owned one in past, but I went through whole manual and menu to check if there actually was some setting I had forgotten.  But everything checked out and also both radios were sounding same. 
I think David told me about great Andean attenuator so maybe then that was just what it was.  There was big club meeting at club on Wednesday evening and someone asked how many contacts I was expecting to do from the station after I had seen it.  I answered I would be quite happy with around 4k contacts. 
Peruvian record made by Olli in 2006 is 4982 Qs and 7.4M pts.  I pulled his log from CQWW website and had his rate sheet.

Contest began quite well and by the end of 1st day I was several hundred Qs ahead of Olli’s midpoint Qs.  It was evident that my 80 m was going to be complete bust as I heard almost nothing there.  Couple stations actually mentioned to me on high bands that I had good signal on 80 during the night, but that won’t do much if I cannot hear.  I pretty much gave up on 80 for 2nd night.  Interestingly I felt I was getting out quite well on 10 but not so much on 15.  I tried to move many mults to 15 but I just could not hear the station
if they actually moved.   20 and 40 were OK during darkness hours.  At the end
of the contest I had couple good hours on 15 so got to 1000 Qs there as well. 
Bands were generally open to both US and EU in same time and it was always dilemma which way to keep the antenna pointed.  Ability to do 2 directions in same time would be big improvement for the station.  Overall I made 2646 QSOs to zones 3-5, great majority of those to zones 4 & 5.  1313 QSOs to zones 14-16, great majority to zones 14 & 15.  Only 169 QSOs to zone 25, which was strangely low.  Bands just never opened well to Asia which is completely different what I had expected.  I had whopping 406 QSOs to zones 10-13 and there was always loud South American 1 pointers to work on all bands 40-10 m.  2nd night was much less productive on 40 meters and I fell back to about QSO counts Olli had in 2006.  My multipliers were lower throughout the contest.  For last several hours bands got bit strange with some kind of black outs that lasted always few minutes and then recovered.  I could start QSO with someone answering me with strong S9 signal but when he was sending me report he was gone and I could no longer hear him.  Then band would recover after few minutes until it happened again.  This was going on for several hours on Sunday afternoon and then for last few hours bands were back to normal.  I only took one longer break during entire contest and had very refreshing 1 hour nap during it on 2nd night.
 Overall I’m happy with the result of almost 5k QSOs which is more than I expected.  2nd radio was much less useful than I thought due to isolation and overall noise issues.  

On Monday I reconfigured the station back to how it was when I arrived and on Tuesday night I was already leaving back to airport for flight back home.  I want to than Olli, Pablo, Oscar, Aurelio, David and everyone at RCP club for all the help and opportunity to use well equipped club station.  Peruvian food was also great and it was nice visit and operation from my last zone.  I also want to thank everyone who over the years has helped and supported me to achieve the peculiar goal to operate the contest from all 40 zones.  It has indeed been interesting journey with many lifetime friends and memories over the years.
73 de Marko N5ZO


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