[UK-CONTEST] OX5AA CQWW CW ..long blurb.

[Ian Pritchard]

Greetings from Greenland!
 
Yes it's Tuesday and we're still here. No planes "in or out" due to bad weather.
 
Sorry to hear that it was a bit chilly in England.  It was a bit chilly here too, daytime temperature of minus 21 C. to be precise.  Not exactly ideal weather for antenna work, especially as the "days" was just 4 hours long. 
Nevertheless we managed to erect a top-band antenna. It was an inverted L, made up of a 60ft tower section and a 70ft wire attached to the top. We were keen to do this because OX is particularly "rare" on 160.
 
We operated from the "club" station at Kangerslussuaq which is on the West Coast. In reality the club has just two members and only one of them is active. He is Jesper OX3KQ and was exceptionally helpful in every way.  The shack is located in a large hut on a hilltop. It's about a 20 minute drive in a 4x4 from the airport settlement. 
 
>From the outset we realised we were not going to be able to make a competitive entry from here. Propagation from inside the Arctic Circle is not the most reliable and there were no antennas for 15 or 10.  We just wanted to make as many qsos as possible and have fun. We entered the Multi-Two section so both stations could "run". The 80M antenna was great, it was a full sized vertical with many radials. The 40M antenna was good too, switchable crossed dipole at about 50ft with a perfect hilltop take off. For 20M we had a home built yagi made by Jesper OX3KQ.

At the start of the contest the sky overhead was brightly illuminated by the "northern lights",  Very attractive, but an Aurora was not exactly we wanted, and conditions at the start were poor. Conditons fluctuated suddenly and wildly throughout the 48 hours.  Sometimes the bands would sound very flat and sometimes excellent. 

Band      Q     Z    DXCC
160       712   16   56
80        1192  24   85
40        1374  22   86
20        1701  22   86
15        1     1    1
10        0     0    0
Total    4980   85   314  Score:5,204,556           

Finally I agree totally with Andy's comments re. the cluster. Anytime we got spotted, discipline was really bad. When our siganals were strong it was ok because we could control things , but when we were weak it was difficult. I got the impression that many callers couldn't actually read morse code! 

Did we have fun? Yes, bucket loads of it.   Would we be rushing back to Greenland to do it again? Possibly not.

73 Ian G3WVG and Nigel G3TXF. ...Kangerlusuaaq Airport Cafeteria.