Topbanders,
It was an enlightening experience with poor conditions almost inside the
auroral oval, very low power, at times a marginal antenna, and a call that
took a LONG time to transmit.
In the first few hours of the contest, running 5 watts output to a
quaterwave sloper made me respect the receive capability of some of the big
gun contest operations and wonder how some of the others ever worked anyone.
Several of the ?all mouth and no ears? operations that can be worked from
the home QTH with ease ended up not in the log as their CQ?s continued
despite being called repeatedly. Thirty-one countries, four zones, and
eighty-four QSO?s were logged by sunrise on Saturday and that wasn?t too bad
considering.
The gales subsided for Saturday night here in Sweden and a Helikite (balloon
and kite combination) supported a full quaterwave off of the fourth floor
balcony of the apartment. Things did improve a bit. With no receive
antennas it was not so pleasant, but with five watts, only strong signals
were in the running anyway. There were two short runs that netted a small
handful of QSO?s before the clear frequency was grabbed by the big boys, and
a few notable operations had the patience to get the call and report in very
heavy QRM. Search and Pounce was the only way to go. (C4A and SY8A both came
back but I got buried in the clobbering horde and missed them) Nothing was
heard from across the pond, and anything east of the Urals was missing also.
(Not that I could have worked any real DX anyway) A total of one hundred and
one QSO?s, four more countries and one more zone were the sunrise total for
the second night.
I must say it was all a struggle, but QRP does make one a bit more patient.
As a summation of the experience, I?ll never do it again with five watts
unless it is from an exotic location or without really good antennas. The
old adage that ?life is too short for QRP? really hit home.
Final total, 102 QSO?s, 35 countries, and 5 zones, total claimed score
4,160. I note that the claimed score was not far off of the EI7IU total I
did a few years back with a hundred watts and real antennas so I guess it is
all relative in the end.
73 de Bob SM0/G4VGO
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