WAE DX Contest, CW
Call: 4O3A
Operator(s): IZ3EYZ
Station: 4O3A/YT6A
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: Obosnik Hill
Operating Time (hrs): 34
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs QTCs Mults
-------------------------
80: 91 56 34
40: 158 194 48
20: 454 709 72
15: 116 270 41
10: 13 16 6
-------------------------
Total: 832 1245 518 Total Score = 1,075,886
Club:
Comments:
Had a great time in Montenegro. Enjoyed both places we visited and the ham
gathering (stories, jokes, etc) down there. Pity we had a tight schedule but it
would have deserved a longer stay in M.ne besides contesting.
WAE itself was a sort of struggle with sh***y conds (as everybody said) and
QRN/t-storms. There had been no rain for 5 months in M.ne so something was
expected to happen. We had t-storms both on Thursday and Friday evening. Both
times el. energy was lost (1st time till mid morning, generator was vy useful).
After the 1st storm some electronics were damaged(rotary twr bearing, SAC X
networking). The 2nd one brought N/W bvg box full of water.
That said things went off to a bad start, then it slowly improved thru the
weekend. SO2R setup was almost ready to go, we just had to fix some minor
issues (WX0B SO2R master getting some RF, replacing a few cables and connecting
RUN1 PA thru BPFs and ant switchings). Friday evening at 23z I decided to sniff
bands: 20m was almost closed, 40m had noise s-9+10/20db, 80m almost the same.
Moreover the t-storm was getting closer and I was considering to start later
taking an off time. On the other hand being at the sunspot minimum and with the
40/80 mult bonus the main strategy is to operate during darkness. I decided to
start hoping for an improvement later on. I was hearing how Is, DLs, OKs, Gs,
etc were working NA on 20m and I could hear nothing out of a few big guns. On
40m everybody was buried into deep noise. 10mins into the contest with 6 Qs in
the log while me and Ranko were talking abt quitting for a while or to take an
off time power went off :-)
Definitely it was clear quitting was the choice!
Being on the highest hill overlooking Adriatic sea Obosnik is really something
amazing to enjoy lightnings towards I7 coast into full darkness.
That said I took off the whole 1st night and started the contest around mid
morning.
A quick overview about bands.
80M: The 2L up there is a killer antenna. Everybody was almost s-9 into
s-9+10/20 statics. Everything I heard I worked. Pileups required one or two
calls to be heard. I just had to give up on a couple of JAs (a JA7 and a JA4)
cos of QRN. BVG couldn't help at all against this super antenna. None of the
JAs worked could be heard on N/E BVG which was the only one that survived to
the storms so I could run some tests.
40M: statics S-9 anytime during whole 48hrs. All 40m Qs were made listening on
the N/E BVG. N/W BVG was damaged and didn't work. Listening on TX antennas
would have produced working just a bunch of guys. I want to apologize to all
those (especially NA guys) calling on 40mt who didn't get an answer. I know it
must have been frustrating hearing someone S-9 Sunday early morning without
being heard. Sorry but N/E BVG didn't allow me to pull out more of you. At
times I was hearing a NA pileup of noise level takers and it was frustrating
for me too. Running to the East was limited due to RFI from N/E wire beam into
antenna switchings. At times antennas started to switch by themselves so I
didn't want to stress stuff so much.
20M: S-7 static at best, peaking S-9 or S-9+ mostly on Saturday. Band was
almost quiet to JA, really bad to USA. Lots of storms over the sea and I7/I6
coast all over the weekend. Asia was pretty loud whole day, NA was generally
weak. The best opening was Saturday evening until the band closed a bit later
after 00z. Compared to Friday morning when I worked West C. at 02.30z it was
just marginal.
15M: Short JA opening on Sat. It was fun to take some QTCs from weak S-0 in/out
sigs. Towards NA I just listened how everybody was working NA: DLs, Is (even
those with a tribander at 20m), OMs, etc. The peak was apparently late in the
afternoon but still marginal. I was surprised to have not so bad Qs, QTCs and
mults numbers compared to others on this band considering I took 2nd morning
off and half of the 1st one and I didn't spend much time here running.
10M: As frustrating as 40M. The pipeline in the morning was to UA9. Everything
else to the East couldn't be heard. YB, HS, 4K, 4L, ZS, 5B, etc were just seen
on the dx cluster screen. Static was covering 360 to almost 270 deg. On
Saturday two NA were heard and one worked: VO1AAM (peaking S-7). VY2ZM was
heard for a while but by the time I tuned up PA (5/10 sec.) he was gone. UU7J
was heard running NA on Sunday but not a beep here. I would have loved to throw
in some CQs (both here and on 15m) even if the band was dead to pick up some
openings. Unfortunately WX0B SO2R box doesn't allow to play with SO2R scenarios
in WT (like dual CQ) so I had to do it manually and didn't use that as much as I
wanted.
Anyhow it had been fun and a great/new contesting experience. I would like to
thank Ranko himself, Z32AF and S52X (15mt stack rotary man :-))that helped to
rotate ants at any time of the day/night since bearing wasn't shown on control
boxes.
Besides a few funny moments (depending on the point of view):
1) Tons of Europeans calling me. Plain CW language explanations that intra Eu
Qs are not allowed weren't copied. Remarkable two DL guys and a SP guy: one
wanted QTCs from me (?!), the two others told me to switch on RX and listen.
2)People extra EU refusing to work me. I had a couple of nice discussions with
EA8BEX and RT9S that at 1st refused to work me cos I wasn't in EU and being a
LID. After some struggles I could force them to work me, but there was no way
to get QTCs from them. Next time you guys are going to use N1MM beauty in WAE
contest, be careful!
3)I read on a logging software reflector (N1MM) about troubles logging and
working 4O3A. I also read lots of people think they got Montenegro working YT3A
or YU3A. Sad but if you missed 4O3A and didn't work another 4O stn (4O4A maybe?)
you missed the multiplier. YU3, YT3, YT6, YU6, etc nowdays belong to Serbia.
Montenegro is just 4O!!
4)Apparently N1MM wasn't tuned on 4O this time. N1MM showed up in WAE CW 2005
crashing with callsigns >10 digits (LX/DL1EKC/P) which ruined tons of QTCs
group from dx stns, in 2006 dx stns couldn't work UR-US-UT-UU-UW stns (they 're
not in Eu said the software), in 2007 Montenegro wasn't in Europe. Any plans for
2008 yet? I don't even want to know how many trusted what N1MM said and didn't
call me. Considering WAE is a dx cluster legalized contest probably many were
filtering stuff and didn't bother (losing a mult). The huge number of Europeans
that called me were maybe due to N1MM bug. I would suggest to DX STNS next time
you gonna take part in WAE please avoid N1MM crap!!
STNA: MKV + OM2500HF
STNB: MKV field + ALPHA91B
10:5L rotary
15:4/4/4L rotary stack
20:3/3/3L rotary stack + 3L (on 15mt stack twr-no pwr splitting)
40:5L wire beam to N/W, 2L wire beam to N/E
80:2L rotary
RX: BVG to N/E and N/W (this one broken)
SAC X switching ants, filters.
SO2R box: WX0B master
SW: Wintest
Cu in 2008, hopefully under better conds with no QRN and full time.
73
Matt.EYZ
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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