03/16/2005 | TE2M The 2005 ARRL 'phone TE2M contest effort is the most recent rendition of 5 years of Multi-Two efforts from Costa Rica, most recently as TI8M from Quepos, Costa Rica. Our efforts began as a group of Atlantans who set up a Field Day type temporary effort. Then, about 3 yrs ago, we were most fortunate to meet TI2KAC, Carlos Alfaro, on the air and convince him to drive to Quepos and join our group. For the 2005 ARRL outing, 3 US hams were able to join forces with 6+ Costa Rican contesters at the Radio Club of Costa Rica in the capitol, San Jose for a Mulit-Two effort. While conditions were down somewhat from last year, the enthusiasm generated by this group and the fine facilities afforded by the Radio Club of Costa Rica, allowed the best score our group has yet recorded. We had almost 500 more Q's than last year, but snagged 5 fewer mults, resulting in a score increase of almost 400,000 points.

After introductions, our multi-national group quickly melded together to make minor changes to the station arrangements and antennas to facilitate the best effort that could be directed northward towards the US and Canada. There was a flurry of Spanish, English, finger pointing and Dry Erase board drawings to decide what would work
best and then accomplish it. And of course there was the prerequisite excellent Costa Rican food, fresh fruit, local pizza and cold, Costa Rican cerveza to keep the machine oiled as preparations were made. I must say that, having participated in more than a couple of multi efforts, I was really amazed at how this group
quickly got everything ready and then proceeded to operate very well together, almost as if we had done this all as a group numerous times before! Several of the Costa Rican ops had not worked in a multi effort before but in just a few minutes, they were banging out Q's like any veteran.

The contest began very modestly with good rates, but the hoped for long 10m opening on Sat never materialized, with only 2-3 hours of favorable 10m conditions. But Sunday was another story! We had one station move to 10m by 1700z, and stay there almost 6 hours with good rates all through the day. 10m has always been very good for our efforts and we were very relieved to see this opening appear and last. We were also pleased with our 160m results.

The motto of our group in Costa Rica has always been to have fun, and hope for a respectable showing, and this outing continued the tradition, with the added International flavor as a great bonus. I think it is safe to say that when our group parted, everyone was already looking forward to joining forces again in the very near future somewhere in Costa Rica.

The Operators were: Oscar - TI2GBY, Juan Carlos - TI2JCY, Carlos - TI2KAC, Mauricio - TI2MOT, Luis - TI2VW, Mauricio - TI4ZM, Eddie - K4UN, Bill - K4WPM and Bob - W4BW.

Bob Wilson -- W4BW