2006 IARU HF World Championships
07/11/2006 |
OH0JFP
IARU HF CHAMPIONSHIP 2006
I followed my own recommendations (http://www.arrl.org/news/features/2006/06/27/1/) and went to the and Islands for this contest. My friend Sture, OH0JFP is more than glad if anyone wants to use his station in any contest. This year's IARU HF event turned to be the maiden try out of Sture's new 14 MHz Yagi antenna. The truth is that the antenna itself is quite aged - a KLM 5 element monobander from late 70's - but we found it in a backyard in a Stockholm suburb only in October 2005. (image 1)
After extensive revitalization early this spring, the antenna was in "as-new" condition and placed on a 80-ft tower at the end of May 2006 with the assistance of Pelle, SM0SOE/OH0GEH. (image 2)
I already then decided to be able to participate in the IARU HF Championship this year and see how this array works. The goal was to make a thousand contacts on each mode - CW and phone. I use an old laptop for logging, because it does the CW keying flawlessly, but due to limited RAM memory I can only log 1K QSOs in each file. I still use the CT9 logging software.
The conditions were good, the 20 meter band was open late into the night, but many CQs were fruitless. It seems that there is hardly any enthusiasm for this competition outside of Central Europe, which is a pity. This is, in my opinion, the best contest of them all for everybody. The rules and the scoring are well reasoned, the results are promptly announced and available for anyone, the certificates are mailed swiftly. And the weather is perfect in Scandinavia then.
The only disadvantage was the small size of Sture's shack - I held the keyboard in my lap (image 3) and the door was open all the time so I was almost sitting out in the open air. Hard to see the weak monochrome screen of the old laptop computer in the strong sunlight, though.
After making the 1024 raw CW QSO's I switched to phone but managed to make only 350 Q's before the final whistle. The new antenna seems to work well at OH0JFP.
Henryk SM0JHF, guest operator at OH0JFP -- SM0JHF
I followed my own recommendations (http://www.arrl.org/news/features/2006/06/27/1/) and went to the and Islands for this contest. My friend Sture, OH0JFP is more than glad if anyone wants to use his station in any contest. This year's IARU HF event turned to be the maiden try out of Sture's new 14 MHz Yagi antenna. The truth is that the antenna itself is quite aged - a KLM 5 element monobander from late 70's - but we found it in a backyard in a Stockholm suburb only in October 2005. (image 1)
After extensive revitalization early this spring, the antenna was in "as-new" condition and placed on a 80-ft tower at the end of May 2006 with the assistance of Pelle, SM0SOE/OH0GEH. (image 2)
I already then decided to be able to participate in the IARU HF Championship this year and see how this array works. The goal was to make a thousand contacts on each mode - CW and phone. I use an old laptop for logging, because it does the CW keying flawlessly, but due to limited RAM memory I can only log 1K QSOs in each file. I still use the CT9 logging software.
The conditions were good, the 20 meter band was open late into the night, but many CQs were fruitless. It seems that there is hardly any enthusiasm for this competition outside of Central Europe, which is a pity. This is, in my opinion, the best contest of them all for everybody. The rules and the scoring are well reasoned, the results are promptly announced and available for anyone, the certificates are mailed swiftly. And the weather is perfect in Scandinavia then.
The only disadvantage was the small size of Sture's shack - I held the keyboard in my lap (image 3) and the door was open all the time so I was almost sitting out in the open air. Hard to see the weak monochrome screen of the old laptop computer in the strong sunlight, though.
After making the 1024 raw CW QSO's I switched to phone but managed to make only 350 Q's before the final whistle. The new antenna seems to work well at OH0JFP.
Henryk SM0JHF, guest operator at OH0JFP -- SM0JHF
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