[UK-CONTEST] IOTA EJ0GI Multi-Op HP

[Gerry Lynch]

As posted on 3830...

IOTA Contest
Call: EJ0GI
Operator(s): EI3DY, EI7HT, EI9FHB, EI9JF, GI0PCU, GI0RTN, GI3MMF, GI8SKN
Station: EJ0GI
Class: Multi-Op HP
QTH: EU-006 (Inis Oirr)
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Summary:
Band CW Qs CW Mults Ph Qs Ph Mults
----------------------------------------
80:     92       35    68       31
40:    429       70   272       43
20:    589       64   142       52
15:    118       32   163       36
10:    108       16   144       16
----------------------------------------
Total:1336      217   794      178 Total Score = 5,709,690

Club:
Comments:
2x FT920 plus amp.

Antennas:
Full size vertical for 80m
Dipole for 80m
2 ele vertical array for 40m
4-square array for 20m
2 ele monobander for 15m at 12m agl
2 ele monobander for 10m at 12m agl

The EJ0GI oepration is in the DXpedition class. All equipment is taken 
on and off the island by ferry, and as the Inis Oirr ferry is not a car 
ferry, we have to load everything on off the boat ourselves. There's no 
convenient roll-on-roll-off ferry service for us! This makes keeping 
weight down absolutely vital.

For the 5th year in a row, a combined team from the South Dublin Radio 
Club and City of Belfast Radio Amateur Society travelled to Inis Oirr 
(population 280), on the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland, for 
the IOTA contest. Due to time constraints for several operators, we 
arrived on the island on the Wednesday evening boat and left on the 
Monday afternoon boat, rather than spending our habitual week on the 
island, which limited peri-contest activity.

Our score is 40% higher than our previous record. Doubtless, this was 
helped by considerable Sporadic E, but we are still chuffed. Every year 
we get a little bit better. This year we didn't really work any more 
QSOs than last year, but we did work *better* QSOs - more 15 pointers 
and vastly more multipliers. We still do not seem to be loud enough to 
generate or maintain real pileups on SSB, but CQ + CW = instant pileup 
in this contest for much of the time. The trick is to handle the 
sometimes frenzied packet pileups without letting rate collapse.

For all the E layer was hopping, the F layer was in odd shape with great 
conditions on 20 and 40 on Sunday morning, but the bands feeling in very 
poor shape late on Saturday evening.

We suffered significant problems with internet connection throughout the 
contest. Inis Oirr is on satellite broadband but this struggled for much 
of Saturday evening and into the wee hours of Sunday morning. We also 
suffered from networking problems in the latter stage of the contest. 
Our run station log started collapsing on us at 2-5 minute intervals 
after about 1000Z. At least the mult station log was working OK, but 
several times we had to run away from pileups abruptly while we sorted 
the chaos out. Apologies for that. For the last 75 minutes of the 
contest, we logged on paper on the run station!

The whole island also suffered a three hour power cut on Thursday which 
shook us all a little and would have landed us in deep trouble had it 
happened during the contest.

Here's the band by band summary:

80m - usually a stellar performer with our big vertical, 80 was poor 
this year. High levels of static throughout and a fair bit of 
ionospheric distortion later in the night made signals difficult to 
copy, while there seemed to be a sort of proto-skip zone later in the 
night, making G/EI signals weak, runs primarily into central and eastern 
Europe and limiting our number of 15 pointers. This is a real problem as 
80 SSB is usually the bread and butter band for working those vital 15 
pointers into Britain.

40m - on the other hand 40 was often superb, and GI0PCU's reconstruction 
of our vertical array seems to have paid real dividends. Long path 
signals from the South Pacific boomed in at our sunrise, adding some 
valuable mults. QSOs deep into both the USA and Asia were commonplace, 
especially on CW. 9M6 called us for a great mult on SSB. We had lots of 
fun on 40.

20m - a bit of a curate's egg. We were tickled to work Hawai'i on both 
CW and SSB, not something we do every year, along with some great west 
coast, African and Caribbean mults. Short skip ensured many 15 point Gs 
called in. Runs into central and eastern Europe on CW were instantaneous 
and never ending. On the other hand, despite reorienting our 4-square 
specifically to work JA, our habitual sunset pipeline to Japan never 
appeared. A JA8 called us in the first hour of the contest, giving us 
hope that we were going to be in 15 point heaven come 2030Z, but it just 
never happened. It felt like prime time for this opening coincided with 
the worst of conditions. This was a big loss.

15m - great Sporadic E into Europe, and some good transatlantic 
propagation early on Saturday evening (presumably multi-hop Es) made 
this band great fun for periods. Sporadic E even tightened as close as 
Central England, netting us plenty of 15 pointers, but the YBs and 9Ms 
we normally hear - if not always work through the Eu wall - were absent.

10m - boy, this was fun. We worked stations as nearby as London and 
Paris on Es. On Sunday morning, the signals from Germany and the Czech 
Republic were S9+++, absolutely pure with no flutter or fading for about 
an hour. It brought back happy memories of sunspot maximum! No real DX, 
but when the band opened rates were excellent and provided lots of 
enjoyment.

Why do we like the IOTA Contest so much? Well, on Sunday evening after 
the contest finished, we were sitting outside Ned's pub on a balmy 
night, with a few cold beers and the most perfect sunset imaginable over 
Galway Bay. Bill GI3MMF commented that all over Europe and beyond, there 
were other groups of radio hams enjoying the same sunset. The great 
thing about the IOTA Contest is that it encourages us to go and sample 
our often unique and vulnerable island cultures at a time of the year 
when, at least in northern Europe, the weather is at its best.

While all our team muck in and work hard at the things they do best, we 
would be completely lost without our antenna guru and site foreman, 
GI0PCU. Thanks, Alan.

We also enjoy superb hospitality from the people of Inis Oirr every 
year, with a warm welcome for these crazy radio hams. In particular, we 
need to thank the authorities at Inis Oirr's three room school for 
allowing us the use of such a convenient and accessible QTH every year, 
with power and internet on tap. Go raibh míle maith agat.

Well, that's that for 2008. See you all next year. Is it too much to 
hope that we'll have some sunspots to accompany IOTA 2009?

73

Gerry GI0RTN