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FS5KA M/M Team - ARRL DX CW 2007 Rear L to R: Dima (RA9USU-N2OW), David (K3LP) and Krassy (K1LZ) Front L t R: Chip (N2YO) and Kamal (N3KS) |
FS5KA M/M Team - ARRL DX CW 2007 - Shirt Back View L to R: Dima (RA9USU-N2OW), David (K3LP), Krassy (K1LZ)Chip (N2YO) and Kamal (N3KS) |
Our crew this year was David (K3LP - Leader), K1LZ (Krassy), Kamal (N3KS), Dima(RA9USU-N2OW) and Chip (N2YO).
Our team worked hard together repairing a T8 beam, and installing our new donated C3 and A4 beams at Mort's (W1UQ's) St. Martin hill top station. In addition, we installed a 160 meter 1/4 wave vertical, and dipoles for 80 and 40 meters.
Our plan was to operate as M/2 with two radios and use a third radio for multipliers, but we changed this Sunday afternoon to M/M since our log was not set-up to track radios on the air and the third radio was used more aggressively Sunday afternoon in hopes of trying to get QSO's on 10 meters.
We could hear PJ2T, HP1XX and others further south working North America, but the 10 meter band yielded only about 200 QSO's and 25 multipliers for us. Our team exceeded my prior VP5LP and FS5UQ M/2 contest Q's and multipliers on every band except 10 meters.
Our FS5KA Team did a great job and worked very well together. We congratulate PJ2T and HP1XX for there success in the M/2 category.
We want to also thank Mort (W1UQ) for allowing us to use his FS5UQ St. Martin hill top station.
The ARRL DX CW contest proves to be great fun each year.
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I was only able to operate 10 or so hours due to family obiligations but still logged a couple hundred QSOs. I was able to add a lot of new entities on CW. Not too bad for a vertical antenna and 80 or so watts. I'm looking forward to more CW contests in the future. I'm hooked!
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From left to right: Phil F6IFY, Pat F6IRF, Mohamed CN8PA, Nico SV3SJ |
View of the antennas installed on the "beach house" terrasse, 30~35m ASL, 200m away from the Atlantic Ocean. |
The station, "dx-ped style", was built-up from scratch in one and a half day and dismantled in half a day after the contest. We arrived Wednesday evening in Casablanca airport with our 70kgs of luggages, and friday at 13:00 everything was operational. The 80m beam,designed for high F/R (dipole/director with 8m spacing) thus protecting us from the high EU-QRM quickly appeared to be a real "killer" in this contest. In spite of our confidence in the antenna simulation, none of us had ever expected to work so many West-Coast stations on 80 and 40, and a few of them with incredible signals...
In general propagation conditions have been excellent on low bands with low QRN levels. 160m was like EME, with low signals, but just the band white noise. The 15m was a real good surprise on both days with such a low SSN and unfortunately no miracle happened on 10m ! 20m closed very early on Saturday evening, but remained open one hour and a half later on Sunday, which allowed us to see the AF-record at our hand.
Equipment-wise, This was the first time that we ever used the IC7000 in real pile-ups... Despite its "miniature" size it really revealed to be a fantastic and powerful small toy - everybody loved it ! N1MM-logger worked without a single glitch - as usual - In fact, everything worked perfectly without equipment failure or any kind of problem, despite high thermal winds (the spiderbeam "heavy duty" 12m fiber mast was strongly bent in the direction of the sea in the morning and the other way during afternoons, but it resisted).
Being at the the end of the cycle 23 (or right at the beginning of the cycle24 - who knows ?), we did not think that it would be possible to beat the current M/S AF-record (EA4KR/EA8) established in 1993, 3 years before the end of cycle 22, but I think we did it !
- Thanks to Mohamed CN8PA for his precious logistic support, for helping us with the installation and for driving us in the incredible Casa labyrinthe and road trafic - Once again, without him, the operation would have been much more dificult! - Thanks to Andre HB9HLM for renting us his appartment and to the "Beach house" direction for giving us the authorization to access the various terrasses and to install the temporary antennas. - Thanks to my Rabat friends: Said CN8LI, Kacem CN8LR and Said CN8WW for their assistance, loan of spare equipment, relations with the administration, etc,etc... - Thanks to Iberia for not charging us for the luggages excedent and for delivering the luggage in Casablanca airport in a timely manner - taking into account the tight expedition time-frame, a single luggage lost in Madrid would have dramatic for the success of the operation ! - Thanks to Elena and Stefano IK2QEI (the CN3A team) for visiting us in Dar-Bouazza. It has been really a nice evening; Stefano has so many contest stories, and such a talking-talent, that we forgot that we were all a bit tired !
We left Mohamed CN8PA at Casa airport wednesday at 11:00, with the head full of new exciting projects. See you soon again from Morocco !
For the team
Patrick - F6IRF/CN2WW
more on http://cn2ww.blogspot.com/
I enjoyed about 16 hours in the shack making 271 QSOs with the following equipment:
SDR-1000 software defined radio running 50W on 80M, 100W on 40M thru 10M.
Inverted Vee on 40M and also used on 80M shorting coax in shack and loading as random wire with tuner. R5 Vertical on 20M thru 10M.
N1MM contest software.
A big thanks to all the DX stations that heard my signal and responded.
73, Bill
Since 42 years ago. In the picture with my father sk LU1DAY. |
Alberto LU1DZ
Great time! Was using my Elecraft K2 @ 5 watts to inverted 'L'. Worked 140 Qs (a couple of dups), and 70 mults from NM. Sad to report the passing of N6ZZ, Phil Goetz, a terrific contester/DXer from nearby Alto, NM.
73/72 Tim
Well I am very pleased with working 11 W Stations on 8Om on Sunday morning using only 5watts to a delta loop.All east coast of course but still an event for me.On 15m best dx was Arkansas and Nebraska still with the 5 watts
John, K4BAI and I returned to Bonaire for the 2007 ARRL DX CW. We have had much success in the past few years at the Bonaire "Radio House" owned by Noah, K2NG. In 2005 we won M2X for the world as PJ4R. In 2006 K4BAI joined me and we won the M/S plaque again using PJ4R.
We wanted to try something different for 2007. John had not done a SOAB HP from the Carribean for awhile so we decided he would do that using the same PJ4A call that K1TO, N4TO and John used in 2006 CQWW CW to set the new M/S record for that contest. I am not the ironman operator that John is so I did 160 Single Band as PJ4/KU8E so not to interfere much with his operation.
We are both happy with our results. John is near the top in the SOAB HP claimed scores and I set a new South America record for 160 meters. Hopefully we will return to Bonaire in 2008 for the contest.
John, K4BAI / PJ4A |
PJ4A and PJ4/KU8E Operating positions |
PJ4A Antenna farm on top of hilltop. |
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