Topband: PT5A - "Vaca Caca"

[pp5jr]

just to confirm that the qsl mamager of pt5a is ve3ho,
best regards to all
sergio pp5jr pt5a
----- Original Message -----
From: <K1ZM@aol.com>
To: <topband@contesting.com>
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2002 8:41 AM
Subject: Topband: PT5A - "Vaca Caca"


> Greetings for the last time from Boa Vista
>
> Many thanks to all who hung in there and kept calling us on Topband over
the weekend.
>
> We managed to pull many of you out of the noise - with over 150 of them
being from Europe no less - despite tough Rx conditions down here.
>
> Our line score in the contest was 340/19/66.
>
> In order to hear ***ANYTHING*** at all, Wayne Mills and I set up a new
1000 foot beverage on Europe, plus two separate 1000 footers to the USA.
These were as far as we could go with our feedlines and about 1000 feet away
from anything else down here - xmit antennas and the local power lines.
>
> These plus TWO MORE existing beverages on Europe plus ONE EXISTING
beverage on the states allowed us to copy a couple of layers at least into
the atmospheric QRNNNNN and power line noise down here.
>
> I think I just about WORE OUT the beverage switch trying to find a quiet
antenna during the contest - at one moment one antenna would appear quiet
and then 3 minutes later, it presented noise well above the signal level of
incoming callers.
>
> Our BEST hearability (despite some EU comments I have read) was into
Europe and the Middle East where we worked two OH's, three SM's, ES, YO, LZ,
4X3A, P3A, 5B4AGC and A92ZE.  Italian signals coming out of Europe were
several S units above anything else from that region of the world - an
observation which occurred repeatedly.
>
> Stateside signals were really hard to copy at **any** time.  Curiously
enough, Midwestern signals were MUCH louder than the USA eastern seaboard
down here.  The expected signal levels of the really BIG W1, W2, W3 multi's
were well down - but workable nonetheless.
>
> I would have to say that three stations had truly outstanding signals down
here in this order:
>
> W8LRL - 10 DB louder than anything else (Must be doing something right
Wal!)
>
> W8JI - consistently loud
>
> K9NS - almost "beacon-like" all night long
>
> Before the contest, John Batten at K9DX was booming also - every time I
heard him.  That new 11 element vertical array is really playing John.....
>
> We had one really funny occurrence down here.
>
> Just prior to the end of the contest - about 2230z, both N7NG and I
noticed our ONLY good beverage started going PUNK.
>
> At first it sounded intermittent, then kinda squirrely, then DEAD.
>
> We both took off our headphones at almost the same time and said "Did the
NE Beverage just go dead?"
>
> Sure enough that is exactly what happened.
>
> After about 5 minutes, a couple of our local PY guys - Nicolau and Wilmar
came in holding a 6 foot piece of our FEEDLINE.
>
> They had wrenched it from the mouth of a COW who was "eating our signals"
they said.
>
> Thus the name "VACA CACA"!
>
> I think this is a FIRST for me - and I have a short piece of this feedline
which I plan on taking back home to my shack.  It is going to be framed as
follows:
>
>                          VACA CACA
>
>                            PT5A
>
>                        November 2002
>
> Thanks again to all of those who called us this weekend.
>
> It was much appreciated.
>
> Qsl's to PP5VB.
>
> 73 JEFF
>
> K1ZM@aol.com
>
>
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