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July just isn't the best time of the year for a DX contest from south central Kansas. However, Jim K0RH (ex KK0SS, K0WUI) had a new call to try out and with a drought in progress, the threat of thunderstorms was greatly reduced.
The operator list for K0RH was Jim K0RH, Ken W0NXS, and myself, Nate N0NB. Since this is a mixed mode contest we each had our own specialties to contribute. Jim is a phone operator, Ken operates CW and I oscillated back and forth although by late in the contest I was prefering the steady run on CW to the hollering on phone!
As for the bands, they were generally in good shape especially lacking aurora effects. We kept busy, but didn't set the world on fire. However, SA and AF were virtually absent! Where was LU and PY? We missed a lot of points with so few of our SA friends in this 'test.
W0NXS was unable to show up until about 2200z so our CW effort got a late start, but Ken was able to quickly make up for lost time.
The early morning hours likely caused Yours Truly to commit at least one band violation jumping from 80 Phone to 80 CW a bit too soon. But, that's how it goes at 0815z!
Murphy stayed away as we had no equipment failures or other malfunctions. Also, is it me or have the bands really become more civilized during the contests the past several years? Sure, the QRM is heavy at times, but I found courtesy to be at an all-time high.
IARU is a fun contest and we look forward to many more. Our final tally of 1282 Q's is a mark we can shoot for in the coming years.
I picked a great contest to try SO2R for the first time. I would have surely fallen asleep had it not been for the second radio! Yikes who turned off the ionosphere?
I thought I would use the second rig barefoot...just an all band vertical + poor band conditions = bad idea! There was a perfectly fine (borrowed for ARRL DX) ACOM1000 still sitting on the shelf. It took five minutes to set up and it took up a good chunk of desk space, but that was a real bonus.
The SO2R controller I built from scratch really worked well. I never REALLY knew how long a CQ was until Saturday! Man I don't know what I am going to do when I only have one radio to use. I ended up with 1092 Qs on the run radio and 221 on the second.
I need to clear my conscience and apologize for my behavior on early Sunday morning on 20m. I was up near the top of the band and was definitely not on my best behavior. I could blame being really tired (which I was an am now as I write this at midnight with only 4 hours sleep this 48), but that is no excuse for being rude. I don't know if I was a total jerk, but I feel bad about it. So if the contester who I was "being hard to play with" reads this please accept my apology.
73 es God bless de KK1L...ron rossi <><
 My approach in contests |
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This was our third IARU contest from J75KG. This year's operation was by George, J75KG/K5KG and Fred, J79MM/NA2U. We used a two radio setup with the second radio (FT890) being used to spot mults for the main station (IC756ProII/AL572). The two rigs' laptops were networked, and WriteLog was used for logging. Antennas were a C3@20' plus full wave loops on 40 and 80.
The 10-day operation went off without a hitch, thanks in part to assistance from Lambert, J73LC, our resident prime-minister-of-how-to-get-things-done-in-an-island-way! The most memorable happenings were finding a very angry land crab with my toe, and a experiencing a violent wind-rain-thunder-lightning storm during the wee hours of the contest. We had to shut down due to the lightning for about an hour. The crab met his Maker!
Qsls for J75KG go to Steve, KU9C, to whom we are forever greatful for his efforts in keeping the wall paper moving.
Qsls for J79MM go diredtly to Fred, NA2U.
George J75KG/K5KG - Fred J79MM/NA2U |
Fred, a happy puppy on his first DX operation |
Fred NA2U - Lambert J73LC - George K5KG |
Atlantic Ocean to the South East from the shack. |
Atlantic Ocean to the East. Palm tree on left was one of three supports for 80 meter full-wave loop. |
C3@20' - QTH in background |
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Had a great time working the contest from Swaziland. I hope to be back there next year with at least one more operator from Here in Houston. Then will have someone working CW while I do phone.
Antenna's were a 3el triband TH3 mounted on a 60 foot crank up tower which is on a trailer. Only other antenna was a 40 meter dipole mounted as a sloper off the tower. The bands were not very good so my numbers were not great. Had 301 QSO's 42 zones and 25 HQ Stations. For a total of 92,795 points. If the bands had beed better would have had twice the number. Look for us next year from Swaziland.
Frosty K5LBU/3DA0CF
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http://www.qsl.net/lx5a/lx0hq_in_the_iaru.htm
73 de LX1KQ
P43P ready to have some fun from his qth |
A look at some of the antennas at my qth |
Started the contest on 20m and changed to 15m after a while. Rates were keeping well above 100q/hr. Best rates were achieved during the 3rd hour of the contest on 15m, when the rate meter hit well over 280q's/hour for my best 10 min contest rate.
Knowing that the guys in Finland were running their WRTC contest stations at Low Power, I was always on the lookout for the WRTC stations. I was quite surprised by some of the exellent signals received by some of these OJ stations. Noticebly strong OJ stations were OJ8E,OJ6K and OJ8L all with nice signal on 40m compared with a very weak OJ1W on this same band, while quite weak were OJ6Y on 20m and OJ6W on 40m.
Final tally of OJ stations worked was as follws: 18 on 40m, 32 on 20m and 24 on 15m, for a total of 74 WRTC 2002 OJ stations worked. Congrats to N5TJ/K1TO who piloted OJ3A to narrow win over RA3AUU/RV1AW for another #1 spot in Finland.
Besides the many familiar callsigns worked, I was pleasantly surprised to be able to move VU2WAP from 40m to 20m and 15m. Thanks for the QSY Miku. TRLOG performed excellent and its 2 radio interface performed flawlessly throughout the contest.
Overall my Q count was higher than last year, but due to 10m not really opening up and LOT'S of usual QRN on 40, 80 and 160m down here, the came in with a lower multiplier count than previous year. Also the 40m activity from stateside was lower than expected this year. Looking at some of the prelimenary numbers posted, it also looks like there was more activity on CW.
Thanks for the QSO's and see you all in the next contest.
73's de P43P/p40b
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Great contest in spite of 10m band was almost dead. Lots of confusion because we think the rules are not so clear when working with a multiplier station. Thus, we decide to stay only with one signal at time on the bands and just hearing and taking notes for the new mult's on the other bands.
Big sort of HQ's came up as long as OJ's and we tried to work them
all. Next time we will get more intense body building lessons instead of just staying seat drinking and cheating, in order to stay awake during the dawn, hi hi. 73's - ZX5J Gang.
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