CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW
Call: ZL6QH
Operator(s): ZL1AZE ZL1BYZ ZL1TM ZL2BSJ
Station: ZL6QH
Class: M/M HP
QTH: Quartz Hill
Operating Time (hrs): 48
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 126 14 14
80: 464 28 63
40: 1820 34 109
20: 1487 35 120
15: 1490 29 85
10: 283 22 38
------------------------------
Total: 5670 162 429 Total Score = 9,846,060
Club: WARC
Comments:
In the lead-up to the contest, ZL was hammered by 'severe gales'. ZL6QH,
located overlooking Cook Strait, suffered accordingly.
The 'Eu long-path' and 'USA short-path' 20 m yagis were flogged to death and
subsequently came down in a rain of bits and pieces.
Vindictive ZL6QH cattle (TM) made sure that those elements not already broken
or bent were thoroughly 'fertilised' and trampled into the mud.
Adding insult to injury, days before the contest the catenary wire holding
up our 80 and 160 m verticals let go. The 80 m sloper was already SK, and this
meant that we were QRT on several bands.
An open-ended series of daylight-to-darkness labour sessions were instituted,
euphemistically dressed up as Activity Days. Unsuspecting 'supporters' were
invited to help. The result was that by Saturday midday, the antenna farm was
once again fully operational, with a larger and better selection of antennas
than before.
CQWW-CW regulars Andrei ZL1TM and John ZL1BYZ travelled down to windy ZL2-land,
joining Brian ZL1AZE and Wilbert ZL2BSJ. With only four ops, ZL6QH was a bit
short-staffed. But even so, at the last minute it was decided to add a third
station and take part as a multi/multi to make sure no one would get bored.
During the daytime, three stations was enough. Surprisingly, on our first
sunset, it was found that all bands were open, and 80 and 160 had to be
neglected somewhat in favour of other bands.
On the second day, ZL6QH was fogged in as 'severe gales' returned. During the
morning, 10 m appeared to be open as W3LPL was heard CQ-ing with strong signals
on an otherwise empty band.
ZL6QH ops stood around the radio, chewing the rag and discussing the vagaries
of 10 m propagation. LPL was duly spotted... until someone mentioned we had not
actually worked the US on ten. Andrei ZL1TM wasted no time in logging the double
mult.
Well before sunset, the 15 m station went QSY to 80 m to look for Eu mults.
Condx seemed good and the band was packed with strong Europeans CQ-ing...most
of whom could not be worked :-(
A modest 80 m run was started of US stations and the rate was OK until the Eu
big guns found out. From then on, the run-QRG was useless as the same people
(who couldn't hear us) called and called. Back to 80 m search and pounce...
Soon afterwards, 160 m opened for us to G, EI and W. After a while, a suspected
intermittent junction in the LF antenna (close to the 160 m sloper) began
causing intermod reception problems for top band op Brian. It also transposed
strong 160 m QRM onto 80 m, which put us off the air on both bands after a
while.
The next morning in the last few hours of the contest the 20 m long path opened
to the US East coast. 15 m produced a steady stream of US callers, and in
between kept the 15 m ops busy with trying to work Caribbean and South American
mults, mostly without success as the DX were beaming north.
We finished up at 9.8 M (2005: 11.4, 2004: 14.1, 2003: 14.7 M). Lower QSO
numbers on 15 and 10 m cost us, but the good showing on 160 and 80 m
compensated somewhat.
The CQWW-CW is one of the best contest with an amazing amount of rare DX to be
worked. Next year, ZL6QH will be QRX as a proposed wind farm goes up on the
site, but we hope to be back with a bigger and better station. Thanks for
working ZL6QH. QSL via ZL2AOH. http://zl6qh.com
Gear used: FT1000MP (3x), Drake L7, AL80-B, Emtron DX2
Antennas:
5 el 20 m (2x), 5 el 15 m (2x), 6 el 10 m (2x)
Vee beam JA/Eu-SP (2x), Vee beam USA-SP, Vee beam Eu-LP, Vee beam USA-LP,
Rhombic (reversible EU LP and SP), 160 m sloper (2x), 160 m Tee GP and
full-size 80 m GP
73/cuagn
ZL2BSJ for ZL6QH ops ZL1AZE ZL1BYZ ZL1TM ZL2BSJ
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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