03/11/2004 | DJ1AA Hello contest freaks around the world,

This is Mirko from Kreiensen in north west Germany.
I had a lot of fun during this very interesting ARRL contest.
My idea was to reach again a good place under the top 10 in
Germany. One week before the contest starts, I got the
chance to buy a very cheap new Kenwood TS-2000x !
I was very happy and want to check whats possible to
reach with the TS-2000x on single band 20m with 100
watts only. I have to say that my 6 element yagi is
working very fine, high up on the tower about 70 feet
from the ground, looking direction USA. In this case it
is not necessary to work with kilowatts. During the
contest, I reached US /mobil stations in contest as well.
The only bad story is, that I lost my using frequency
because some kilowatt station from Europe did not
get my signals and breaks in or overtook my frequency.
After this, I had to look for a new possible frequency
and this took sometimes up to 30 minutes from my
active time. These are my live LOW Power experience
which I made. Perhaps next year 2005 with 500 watts
back in the ARRL DX contest, lets see.

I think it was a nice experience to check out what is
possible. The WX conditions during the contest:
It was very cold and we got ice and snow. I live closed
to the Harz mountains in JO41XU. I remember exactly
regarding my last "hot" DXPedition end of 2003.
I was QRV from KENYA 5Z4, East Africa with my own call
sign 5Z4HU (5Z4/DJ1AA) QSL via DJ1AA. The temperature in
this location is much warmer..hihi. I hope to be active
in a coming up future contest from Nairobi, Kenya as well.

Information about my conditions:
ARRL SECTION: DX.
CONTEST: ARRL-DX-SSB.
CATEGORY: SINGLE-OP 20M LOW SSB.
CLAIMED SCORE: 85542.
OPERATOR: DJ1AA.
Claimed Qso 538.
Claimed Dupes 0.
Claimed Pts 1614.
Claimed Mult 53.
Equipment: Kenwood TS-2000x, Power: 100 Watts output,
Headset Pro Heil, 6 Element YAGI, 23m up from the ground,
German Contest Software, QW 4.0.
Log change to Cabrillo format by software LM 3.99 (very
nice and easy software by DL8WAA, thanks Frank !

Hope to meet you again in the next international contests.
I will be QRV in the WPX end of this month. See You !!!

73 Mirko (www.dj1aa.de) -- DJ1AA / AB0DL / 5Z4H