03/09/2005 | XE2AC Everything began early of this year when in a club meeting, I proposed to take part in the ARRL DX International Contest, with the main objective to give our Ham aspirants a taste of what contesting is in Amateur Radio, and try get fresh blood in our ranks.

Our Multi-single team was formed by the Radio-Aficionados XE2AUB, XE2AGS and XE2AC - who carried the TX/RX responsibilities and the aspirants: Edisa Algal (YL), Miguel Palos, Manuel Heredia, Juan Mor, Jaime Barrera and Marco Figueroa. They were assigned the band-mapping and DX-Cluster, with the mission to locate and inform the multipliers location.

The day of the contest came and we started running on 20M at 00:15z, working multipliers in the station 2, while the aspirants doing the DX-Cluster and band mapping .
Benjamin XE2AUB, Chepe XE2AGS and Luis XE2AC did the transmitting duties.
XE2AUB worked at the outmost purest style, using its manual key in station 2. In the beginning a little "slow" - to 15- 20 words per minute; some hours later , he was comfortably copying at 25 words per minute. Worth to mention that Chepe XE2AGS, had many, many years of not transmitting in HF. In the beginning he battled to remove his CW "spiderwebs", but little short later, he was enjoying himself manipulating the Keyboard memories sending the proper exchange
In the run station ,after two hours of operation, we had 190 QSOs, then propagation began to vanish, so we found a clear frequency and started running on 40M. Two hours later we changed to 80 Ms and around 06:00z, we started to run on 160M, where -in approximately one hour, we rack another 100 QSOs. Then the rate became very slow between 0700z and 0800z, with only 100 QSOs ; by then we were very tired, so decided to take a 4 hours break, and turnoff everything. This was a big mistake (read on), at this moment we had 544 QSOs.

Around 12:20z, we started again and after working 2 QSOs, we found out that we had lost one PC and a serious network connectivity issue, so we shutdown transmissions to correct these faults; we lost here precious time and started running again on 15M at 15:30z .
At this stage, we decided that instead of operating Multi-single, we will continued operating as as "Multi-two", because it was becoming quite boring for the multiplier station we were losing the running frequency when waiting for the other station to grab a multiplier (we ran with only 100 watts).
More incidents: During Saturday, the knob got jammed of the IC-738 (Station 2) and it was replaced with an FT-1000D. When doing this, we lost the automatic frequency tracking due to the lacke of the PC and pasband filter interfaces. So we continued doing those functions by hand.
Jaime and Miguel frantically began to improvise interface cables for FT-1000D,
unfortunately, our local Radioshack store had already closed and continued in manual fashion.
At 18:00z of day 1, we only had 750 QSOs, so we refocused and to pushed the accelerator..... , 9 hour s later (03:00z of day 2) and despite the time lost with the Icom rig replacement, the meter was showing 1,500 QSOs.
This took a toll and by 7:30s we decided to take another rest, with the log indicating 1,700 QSOs .
We restarted at 14:15z with good rates and continued with decente averages until finally we closed running in 20M.
The final log registered 2,516 QSOs and a score of 2'234,208 points.

LESSONS LEARNED:
1. - Network ready and 100% tested at least one day before the Contest
2. - Never turn-off equipment during the Contest (when taking a rest)
3. - 100% interfaces ready including radios backup.
4. - CW keyer by PC in all Rigs (it was badly needed in station 2)
5. - Automate antenna changes.

COMMENTARIES
Edisa Algal (aspirant YL ): "From attending the contest, I can say that the experience was very interesting since it is complicated to translate and to dedcode CW at high speed... There is a lot of pressure , but as the time passes by, you become accustomed and actually enjoying it".

Manuel Heredia (aspirant): "1. It seemed to me very intense and complicated listening the callsigns of different radio hams 2. The contest of 48 hours is truly a marathon. I believe that 24 hours would be enough ".

Juan Mor (aspirant): ".... the contest in cw is something interesting; if it is arduous to listen the phone version, it is a lot more difficult in CW; I learned to have patience and knowledge to listen; transmissions are very fast and it is admirable that people can listen at more than CW 30 words per minute; I congratulate them; I hope that one day I will do the same".

Marco Figueroa(aspirant): "... the experience was quite interesting, I do not understand yet what is the Amateur radio world, although is something worthy to share with friends and relatives. In my case I was accompanied by my 13 years old daughter and even though she did not understand absolutely of what was the exchange, she was pleased to observe the competition level.

Chepe XE2AGS: "the contest for me was a new and a great experience of comradeship; It was a great surprise to taste the new technologies used these days on these CW contests, and of course the emotion of the competition. It was magnificient".

Benjamin XE2AUB: "This was my first time in M2 category, I enjoyed it very much. The conditions were good as well the patience of the stations working my rust telegraphy, well thanks to all ".

Miguel Palos and Jaime Barrera(aspirants) did not have opportunity to send their comments, but we want to thank Miguel for "resurrecting" one of the networked PCs that died during the heat of the battle and also to Jaime for his desperate efforts to build the radio interface for the multi station.

Luis XE2AC:
I m very greatful to my Family for supporting me in this operation, as well to all the team who enthusiastically participated in this historical event that - by first time- was carried out in the State of Aguascalientes. I hope that our aspirants got their ham ticket prior the next contest, so that they can be our fresh blood in our contesting community. -- XE2AC