12/19/2007 | VK8AA ARRL 10m Contest Expedition 2007 - Call: VK8AA
Operator(s): David Burger VK2CZ
e-mail: k3hz@ieee.org

Class: SO SSB HP PHONE
QTH: Darwin

Summary:
Band 10 QSOs Mults -------------------
SSB: 261 27 -------------------
Total: 261 27 Total Claim Score = 14,094

Hi all, a generally very disappointing report from Australia for the 2007 event. The key driver to activate was being #1 Phone in Oceania for the past 4 years consecutive years.

With poor propagation forecasts, and not having participated in any contests this year in any meaningful way, this was my last opportunity to get on air in '07 and hand out a few QSOs. Planning for this trip was in place all year, and really not a whole lot of preparation was actually needed, just site permissions. I did loose track of what I had in storage in Darwin, so I did double up on a few brackets and clamps which really wasnt a bad thing.

Knowing propagation conditions would be poor again, operating from an equatorial latitude was important to take advantage of the propagation lifts available. Id also planned and built up the largest 10m band antenna I have ever used; a 9 element wide spaced yagi, boom 22.3m long, and in the air about 20m.

I recycled almost all of the 5 element 40m beam material from the 2006 CQWW SSB event. While much of the old 40m yagi material had been scrapped in 06, the core material mainly the boom, was the key ingredient. The boom has been getting progressively shorter each time I assemble it and it came to a design flaw, where the telescoping sections would jam under compression load from the boom guys. The whole 25m long (nominal length) 80mm diameter boom is kept together using just 6, 4mm screws. This will eventually get upgraded to 10 screws to avoid the binding problem.

Yagi gain without ground effects was 14.2dbi.. which made a very credible difference to signal strengths, and a big lift was noticeable on the Sporadic E fades, but not reflected by the anticipated quantity of QSOs in the logbook.

Oddly, the eastern part of VK and ZL occasioned on an impressive 6m opening both evenings (local time), which meant I was being called by ZLs on 10m way into their night time, even with my beam on Japan and then EU. I closed down just after dusk on both days, as there was no external lighting available at the site, and the need to lower the yagi unto the ground to prevent it being tossed around in overnight storms. I expect I may have sacrificed a few QSOs by doing this, but practicalities and safety were more important.

The serious mechanical lifting equipment to get the Yagi antenna higher off the ground was just not available (read affordable) this year - a major building construction boom going on in Darwin! I did manage to secure a small Franna with a 23m extension, and a fully air-conditioned room. I used a new temporary site located beside the East Arm port facility.

Outside was serious wet season, mostly 34C at 96% to 100% humidity the whole time, with sand flys and mosquitos carrying the deadly Ross River virus an impossibly hot and unforgiving environment to even sit outside. Combine this with daily storm warnings and ocean surge awareness reports on local radio stations means I will eventually get caught up in something one of these years.

With the combination of high temperatures and high humidity, I started dismantling around 1000z on day 2 with the car headlights on, and not bothering to get on the last 2 hours of the event. In past years, the 12 hours between contest end and return flight to Sydney has been a right squeeze and I wasnt about to hurt myself with the extra issues I had to deal with this year. [my timber packing transport boxes were smashed on route to Darwin, and these boxes were re-manufactured courtesy of Roger Elfenbein Asbestos Removals.]

Back to radio, had around 110 QSO's on day 1, and around 150 QSOs on day 2. Each day there was literally a 3 minute opening to EU, day 1 occurred at 0904UTC, day 2 was at 0910 utc.. very spooky. Only one JA in the log on Day 1, despite reports that east coast VK was working into China and Japan easily. Day 2 was easily the best day, with quite major improvements in propagation. A local factory only 100m away operated over the whole weekend, and lots of ad-hoc electrical interference was present. Noise levels went from 10/9 to zero frequently with 2 stages of DSP noise filtering working to the max.

There was also little latitude with stations that gave out partial callsigns, failed to use recognisable phonetics or those that felt like a chat with the fast QSB and sporadic E, I had a whole page of scribbled partial callsigns, and sadly, only a handful were ever completed. A few meteor pings took some JA signals to 20/9, but nothing like the high meteor activity in 2006. It would be fair to say that 90% of all QSOs were hard work.. almost as hard as operating phone on a noisy 40m band.

The longest distance QSOs for:
Asia was with 4X4 (11,296km),
EU was OH6 (12,076km),
OC was KH6 and sadly nothing at all from NA/SA... but certainly not for lack of trying.

Most interesting QSOs was XW1A and VK9ZLH - a real surprise DX bag, and of course the OH station that came out of nowhere with a good signal!

Below is a quick summary of Countries (mults) and qso's..

COUNTRY QSO's
Australia 102
Japan 87
New Zealand 23
China 8
Malaysia 6
Korea 4
Hong Kong 3
Indonesia 3
Singapore 3
Germany 2
Hawaii 2
India 2
Italy 2
Thailand 2
Asiatic Russia 1
Cook Islands 1
Finland 1
Guam 1
Israel 1
Laos 1
Lord Howe 1
Mariana 1
Poland 1
Slovenia 1
Tajikistan 1
Serbia 1 -- VK2CZ