CQ 160 METER CONTEST -- 1999
Call: P43P Country: Aruba
Mode: SSB Category: Single Operator
QSO QSO PTS STATES COUNTRIES
Totals 230 2232 43 23 = 147,312
All reports sent were 59 P4, unless otherwise noted.
Equipment Description:
FT-1000MP
ALPHA 76A
260 ft Inverted V @ 55 ft
3 Beverages: NA, EU & AF
Club Affiliation: Aruba Amateur Radio Club
Notes:
Arrived in Aruba late Friday evening at 11:30pm local time. The CQWW
160M contest had started about 4 hours before, so I though I would make
it home just in time for the EU opening. WRONG. American Airlines lost
my
bagage and I had to spend an extra 1 1/2 hours at the airport for
claiming my lost bagage.
By the time I got home it was rather late, but still managed to get
about 60 q's on that Friday evening. Saturday evening the band started
out a
lot noisier, with noise level of s7 to s9 and just a little better on
the beverages.
Of interest was that I could hear EU coming in quite strong about an
hour before my sunset on Saturday afternoon.
Contest wise, YV2IF was the 1st in my log @ 0531z, KN4LF 1st stateside
@ 0540z and SM4CAN 1st EU @ 0555z. Lot's of interference from V47KP who
was very
strong even 7KHz up from his frequency. Had to stay pretty far away from
him to be able to copy signals, but not much leeway for frequency choice
here in Aruba, since we are only allowed to operate from 1800 through
1850 on topband.
Got to work RW2F at 05:23z for a new one on 160m and worked OT9T at
0544z
after calling him for two days in the clear without results. I finally
got the attention of EA8AN station around 0644. The other EA8 station I
tried
calling previously was listening only stateside and I could just not get
through the pileup. Last European multiplier was G3NAS who called me at
06:56z, but EU was real weak by then so I had some troubles copying his
call.
With a noise level of at least S9 to S9+20, my QRN was getting to
the point that I could not copy but the strongest signals. Even S9
signals I had troubles picking up between the static crashes. Some calls
took quite a bit to copy. Thanks for hanging in there guys and sorry for
the ones I could not copy because of the static.
Did not really wait for the gray line on my Sunday morning sunrise cause
noise levels were increasing to S9+40 and down here in the
Caribbean we rarely ever get signals over S9+20 on 160, so I spared my
voice for next weekend ARRL DX contest.
Really enjoyed the 2 evenings on 160m SSB, like they say,
nothing beats TOPBAND. Thanks for the Q's and see you all as P40B for
ARRL DX and WPX.
Jacobo Oduber - P43P
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