2008 IARU HF World Championships
08/11/2008 |
EI/ON4EI
For our first visit to my in-laws in Ireland, accompanied by my wife and our twin daughters (15 months old) in the area of Clonmel (County Tipperary ), I was granted 3 and a half full days liberty to prepare and participate to the contest.
Arriving in Ireland with only my 100 W transceiver, I had to build the contest station (antennas and found a way to supply 12V power) within 2 days.
As I already built a 2 elements triband wire beam designed by VE7CA for my house in Belgium, I decided to build a new one for this contest and for the future holidays with my Irish family.
Additionally, I also built a 40m inverted V antenna that I planned to extend during the night of the contest to gather some new multipliers on 80m.
All antennas where attached to an old 9m (30 feet) pylon and to the roof of the house at an height of 6 meters (20 feet) above the ground.
Friday evening the first tests were made and showed a very strong signal from the EU on the 3 upper bands, the wire beam was ready. The VE7CA wire beam has also the possibility to change direction by 180 while giving the feed line a pull and the array flip over in direction of the American continent.
I was ready to start my first main participation to an international contest on HF band.
The first day, July 12th 2008, the 15m and 10m bands were open on short skip to Europe with very strong signals, and my position regarding European HQ stations was ideal, I contacted the majority of them while calling only one or two times to break the pile up.
During the Saturday evening on 20m and 15m, I had good opening to south and Central America, while opening to North America was very weak as I only contacted the major big NA contest stations, but new multipliers.
During the night, 40m band was good; I contacted the main European HQ stations without any difficulty and also some W, VE and D4C stations. I continued late in the night on 80m to collect HQ multipliers only.
3 hours of sleep and back to work before sunrise Sunday, but the 10m band was only open to the Atlantic side EA/EA8/CT3 and nothing to Europe continent side. That day, the activity was mainly on 20m and 15m, and I was looking mainly for Russian station with good results between 10 and 12 UTC.
During the activity, I had different comments about my callsign, such as, nice callsign, amazing or very confusing, so I decided to change from Echo India stroke ON4 Echo India to Echo India stroke ON4 Echo Italy to avoid the repetition of Echo India that confused some operators, asking me to repeat several times my callsign.
Meanwhile I finished the contest with just 500 contacts and 139 multipliers with a claimed score of 191.820 in low power category.
For next year, I already plan new antennas, like a full half wave vertical dipole on 40m and a 10 elements inverted V wire yagi beam, taking full benefit of the Irish fields.
A last thought for my patient wife who has little interest in my hobby, how is tired of hearing me talk letters, numbers, and Roger Over and who will always have an allergy to antennas
Thank you Virginia
Olivier -- ON4EI
Arriving in Ireland with only my 100 W transceiver, I had to build the contest station (antennas and found a way to supply 12V power) within 2 days.
As I already built a 2 elements triband wire beam designed by VE7CA for my house in Belgium, I decided to build a new one for this contest and for the future holidays with my Irish family.
Additionally, I also built a 40m inverted V antenna that I planned to extend during the night of the contest to gather some new multipliers on 80m.
All antennas where attached to an old 9m (30 feet) pylon and to the roof of the house at an height of 6 meters (20 feet) above the ground.
Friday evening the first tests were made and showed a very strong signal from the EU on the 3 upper bands, the wire beam was ready. The VE7CA wire beam has also the possibility to change direction by 180 while giving the feed line a pull and the array flip over in direction of the American continent.
I was ready to start my first main participation to an international contest on HF band.
The first day, July 12th 2008, the 15m and 10m bands were open on short skip to Europe with very strong signals, and my position regarding European HQ stations was ideal, I contacted the majority of them while calling only one or two times to break the pile up.
During the Saturday evening on 20m and 15m, I had good opening to south and Central America, while opening to North America was very weak as I only contacted the major big NA contest stations, but new multipliers.
During the night, 40m band was good; I contacted the main European HQ stations without any difficulty and also some W, VE and D4C stations. I continued late in the night on 80m to collect HQ multipliers only.
3 hours of sleep and back to work before sunrise Sunday, but the 10m band was only open to the Atlantic side EA/EA8/CT3 and nothing to Europe continent side. That day, the activity was mainly on 20m and 15m, and I was looking mainly for Russian station with good results between 10 and 12 UTC.
During the activity, I had different comments about my callsign, such as, nice callsign, amazing or very confusing, so I decided to change from Echo India stroke ON4 Echo India to Echo India stroke ON4 Echo Italy to avoid the repetition of Echo India that confused some operators, asking me to repeat several times my callsign.
Meanwhile I finished the contest with just 500 contacts and 139 multipliers with a claimed score of 191.820 in low power category.
For next year, I already plan new antennas, like a full half wave vertical dipole on 40m and a 10 elements inverted V wire yagi beam, taking full benefit of the Irish fields.
A last thought for my patient wife who has little interest in my hobby, how is tired of hearing me talk letters, numbers, and Roger Over and who will always have an allergy to antennas
Thank you Virginia
Olivier -- ON4EI
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