Scandinavian Activity Contest, CW
Call: OH2BH
Operator(s): OH2UA
Station: OH2BH
Class: SOAB HP
QTH:
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
80: 479 46
40: 756 59
20: 819 66
15: 111 38
10: 11 6
-------------------
Total: 2206 215 Total Score = 1,085,750
Club: Contest Club Finland
Comments:
It was great to be back at OH2BH's after one year. Because low activity at
OH2BH's in last year, we knew that station may not be just "plug and play". But
we were surprised to face so many failures.
I drove from Oulu about 700km to the station on Friday evening and we're hoping
to get everything ready by Friday night. 1st we'd notice that one of amplifiers
was broken and all we got out from amp was really bad smell. So at night we
called to OH2PM at OJ0B in order to borrow an amplifier from his station.
Pertti was kind enough to let us broke into his house and "steal" his amp on
early Saturday morning.
So were back in business... At least we thought so. Next we'd notice that one
of three towers was not showing the direction correctly. After some
investigating we found the problem from rotator controller. We were not able to
fix that problem at the site so all we could do was to recalibrate the tower and
hope that it'll work for next 24 hours. Again everything was working almost as
planned and I thought that now we're ready.
And we were... until 11.58UTC when I'd noticed that 2nd radio was deaf. We
thought that front end of 2nd radio was gone and Martti, OH2BH, left to pick up
new radio from Ville, OH2MM. All I could do was to start contest with SO1R
setup, try to stay the pace of others and collect myself. After one hour of so
I'd notice that the problem is not the 2nd radio, but that 3rd tower. None of
antennas on that tower were not working, but only coaxial connected to the
radio. So the tower relay up at 30mtrs was gone for some reason. That was
something we were not able to fix on fly, so had to make the hard decision
either to give up and go home or continue with only 66% antennas at the station
in use.
I knew that continuing means operating with quite handicapped station and all
the time I had to select either beaming to two directions and not use 2nd radio
or use just one direction for RUN radio and S&P with 2nd radio.
I decided to continue and see what the situation is when everyone hits the low
bands. But operating was everything but smooth and I was falling behind hour
after hour. Then when everyone came to low bands around 20UTC or so I heard
OH0Z, OH8X, OJ0B and some others, it was time to make the decision. OH0Z was
something like 100Qs' ahead of me and OH8X and OJ0B had advantage of 30 â??
40Qs'. After thinking options I knew that if I give up, I'll be loser and I'd
hate myself for weeks after the contest. On the other hand, if I'd try as hard
as I could, I could still be loser, but at least I would have been trying and I
might even catch up at least some of the guys.
So it was time for some serious low band SO2R contesting... I was surprised how
good 80m & 40m were, but even more I was surprised when realizing that I was
actually able to catch up others in next couple of hours. Sunday morning 20m
opening to east have always been good at OH2BH in SAC, so I knew that if I'd be
less than 50Qs' behind the leader in morning, it'd be possible to cut the finish
line first. And in morning when I heard others on 20m that I was actually
leading in QSO numbers! I knew that all I had to do was keep my ear on possible
15m opening and keep up the rate on 20m.
At the end I'm quite happy with the score, but somewhat disappointed with the
actual operation. Losing the 3rd tower at the beginning was almost crucial and
made this SAC unreliable challenge for me. It took me almost 12 hours to be
back in the game and even after that time after time I was thinking how I'd be
doing without failures...
My great thanks to Martti & Leena for great hosting once again! Also thanks to
Pertti, OH2PM and Ville, OH2MM for letting me to use their gear. And of course
thank you all for QSO's and great competition!
See ya next weekend in SAC SSB. I'll at OH8X looking for endless NA pileups on
20m ;)
73 de Toni, OH2UA
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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