Oceania DX Contest, Phone
Call: VK4KW
Operator(s): VK4BAA VK4NEF VK4NDX VK4TS
Station: VK4KW
Class: M/2 HP
QTH: ESK
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160:
80:
40:
20:
15:
10:
-------------------
Total: 1500 800 Total Score = 4,478,425
Club: VK Contest Club
Comments:
Well, the OCDX never ceases to amaze.
Propagation in VK4 was not the best we’ve ever seen - that’s for sure. Most
QSOs were a struggle, with the occasional short burst of strong signals.
10m was awful �" no other way to put it. Gone are the days of 2000+ QSOs
on the band.
15m was fruitful �" but still not on a par with previous years.
20m was highly variable and patchy to say the least.
40m and downwards got more attention than usual �" as would be expected
when the sun had clearly washed with Clearasil and got rid of its spots.
It was good to hear VKs on the bands �" albeit there were a few idiots
who plagued the contest stations with their usual level of ignorant stupidity
by sending RTTY, SSTV and plain old key down tactics. Others didn’t appear to
know how to use the filters on their radios and whinged about stations operating
”too close” to each other. Maybe Wyong FD should have a session on educating
the masses as regards fully utilising their radio hardware to full effect
instead of howling endlessly about band occupancy.
AT VK4KW, we had spent quite a number of weekends testing and fixing all
aspects of the station. We found several issues which would’ve compromised us
heavily �" we’ve paid the price in the past for not doing this type of
pre-work and getting issues during the contest making us deaf or completely off
air as a consequence. We’d also revised a number of the antenna systems and
this proved very fruitful as they performed very well and made the station
capable of working stations on a band which initially appeared to be closed but
was actually partially open. Plenty of ethereal QSOs resulted and made the hard
work of the previous weeks worthwhile.
Propagation improved towards the end of the contest with 20m nd 15m open to EU
�" but it was too late in the day and the mult tally reflected this
unfortunately.
All good fun �" thanks to the OCDX Committee for putting on yet another
splendid contest which puts this region into the limelight on the world stage.
73,
Phil
VK4BAA / VK4KW
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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