Topband: Stew Perry from VK6VZ/6 at Cape Leeuwin lighthouse

[Steve Ireland]

G'day

This year's Stew Perry trip was limited to the first 11 hours of the 
contest and unfortunately conditions were very poor towards North America 
and poorish towards Europe.

VK6VZ/6 was operational from sunset on 17 December, prior to the start of 
the contest, and only W8JI and some weak Japanese stations were heard 
before the start of the challenge.  In contrast, 18 and 14MHz sounded very 
lively after dark, which was a bad sign...

The first few hours brought VK and ZL , plus N7UA, NL7Z (thanks for your 
patience!) and W7AWA.  Signals were very weak, with N7UA only S5 when Bob 
is usually S9 from home (a much poorer location).

Europeans were audible from three hours before sunrise, but 
unworkable.  After about 30 more minutes, stations in eastern Russia 
started to come back and by the time sunrise came around about 30 Europeans 
were in the log, ranging from GM and OH as far south as southern France.

All contacts were 'Search and Pounce' - I did try CQing but no one came 
back!  Contacts often took several minutes to complete, owing to poor 
signal levels and QRN at both ends of the path.  QRT took place at sunrise 
on the 17 Dec, to make the 300km-plus trip back to Perth.

Antenna was an inverted vee dipole at 120'  (36 metres) above the sea, 
after attempts to erect a delta loop failed (couldn't get the bottom wire 
out of the scrub and into the air...)

Vy 73

Steve, VK6VZ/6


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