CALL: ON4UN
OPERATOR: ON4UN
CATEGORY: 40 M MONOBAND
QSO'S: 1241
MULTIPLIERS: 53
SCORE: 201.042 POINTS
STORY:
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I had the same problems as for the CQ WW CW, "which of the low bands to
operate". Anyhow, 160 was out of the question because of the noise problem
generated by a nearby chemical plant. In the CQ WW I went for 80, and (as a
result??) 80 was the poorest band of the 3. Forty was super (they said), and
160 was out of this world (everybody seems to remember).... The choice was
between 80 and 40. The two last years I did 80, so -for a change- I decided
on 40. I should have known better!!! With sunspot numbers in the high 60's
the MUF goes way below 7 MHz at night. Which is what happened on both nights
of the contest! The band was almost dead between 02:00 and sunrise on both
nights. Only the very strong contest stations were strong, and the others
were just barely over (or in) the noise. I was fortunate to be able to hold
a very good contest rate in the first two hours (150/hour), which made me
end the first night with nearly 600 QSO's. But the rates were around 30/hour
once the MUF fell flat on its a... Just before sunrise the band seemed to
pick up a little, and a number of West Coast stations were worked.
Long path to W6/7 was good on Saturday: I worked 30 stations, which is good
from this far West in Europe. First station heard in the afternoon was W6GO,
right over the North pole at 13:00Z (1 hour after local noon). W6GO was
probably THE outstanding signal from the West coast, both long and short
path. First long path heard was W0UN (big -signal- John), followed by K0RF,
W6GO (LP), KC7EM, KC7V, N7QQ, W6YA etc..
Saturday night was very similar to Friday night, with one major difference:
the band did not seem to pick up to the West Coast near our sunrise. Where
at 00:00 GMT I had a 80 QSO lead on my 1992 score (the highest world score),
the lead changed into a lag on 60 QSO's at sunrise on Sunday. Sunday
afternoon long-path only yielded 6 QSO's (must have worked them all on
Saturday?). Forty opened up very early on Sunday evening, (first East Coast
at 18:45 GMT), and produced a good QSO rate until the end of the contest. I
finished with approx. 10 QSO's more than in 1992, but the multipliers were
way down. Whereas in 1992 I missed only 1 multiplier (Labrador), this year I
missed a great number: N. Dak, S. Dak, Idaho, VE4, VE6, NWT and labrador.
It is amazing but not illogical to see that 40 behaved very different from 4
years ago. In 1992, the band was very good between 03:00 and 08:00, just the
opposite from this year. During the same time period the band was almost
dead because of the very low MUF. In 1992 7 MHz must have been near, the MUF
, producing strong signals.
This year, of course, sunspot numbers were very much lower than in 1992,
which explains everything.
Three European stations excelled in trying to steel my frequency: UX7I (did
it 3 times, the first time it took me 7 whole minutes before I could move
him!), OM7DX and HAM6OY (he sure has no ham spirit!). Nobody from the states
tried., however. Maybe I was louder in the states than here? I used the 3
el. full-size yagi to the States, and had my 4-square beaming East to tell
the "pirates" to move. That was helpful.
The new FT1000MP operated flawlessly, as expected.
73
John, ON4UN
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john.devoldere@innet.be
Call us in all major 1996 contests: ON4UN (OT6T in WPX)
John Devoldere (ON4UN-AA4OI)
POBOX 41
B-9000 Ghent (Belgium)
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