CQ Magazine published the final results of this year’s CQ WW WPX CW contest in it’s November issue. This officially confirms my 4th world-win this year. 😎
As our groundplane from Uwe’s 80 m entry in last month’ WWDX-SSB was still up I decided to go for 80 m in this year’s WWDX-CW, too. I haven’t done so for a few years and there was nothing to be expected on 15/10 m with current solar minimum condx anyway.
Our GP is a simple design: an 18 m fibre mast by Spiderbeam with 19,5 m of wire loosely wound around it as the radiator plus 20 x 10 m long radials and another 4 x 20 m radials evenly thrown into the grass. A little coil to inductively match it to 50 ohms and et voila, it’s working across the whole band … although that indicates rather high earth losses. But it’s working much better than our 18 m high (apex) Inverted-V dipole, of course, real fun to use! Didn’t use any RX antennas but just the GP so there’s still some potential for improvements. 😉
The first night was really good! Worked 630 QSOs in a little over 8 hours, went to bed at 8:30z. The second night was (expectedly) already much slower with 900 QSOs in 18 hours while the third night always needs endurance – this time, too, with just another 400 QSOs in 10 hours.
It was cool to work 360 x W/VE, much more than expected, even 5 x zone 3! Most of the North Americans during the first and second night, a few of them being extremely loud. The third night the band was very noisy with lots of QRN and weak signals and QSB which made copy difficult and needed several repeats at times … partly also due to my brain going intermittent while decoding the CW signs. 😀
I was lucky to also work 20 x JA, expected only a handful. Interestingly most of them Sunday evening which was much better into that direction. 5 x zone 19 were not bad, either. 😉 Looking into multipliers I didn’t raise the full potential. I heard 2 zones and 15 countries more than I worked (i.e. KH6 as a double mult) but eventually lost my passion to queue up in the pileups. 🙁 It’s unbelievable what’s happening almost all the time: there’s a skimmer spot for a new mult and immediately all big M/M stations jump onto it (of course lots of others, too, but the big M/M always stand out as you hear them over and over again) giving their callsign 10-12 times in a row without listening, then RXing for 1 (!) second and starting all over again?! They probably think brute force will make it but nope, it does not! During that time nobody is doing a QSO and the DX is frustrated too (no QSOs = no rate). This “if not me then nobody else either, I have to be first” mentality really sucks! 🙁 I don’t blame the ones who in the heat of the moment call a second time and if not hearing anything maybe even a third time after listening for 3 seconds. That happens to me, too. But an RX:TX ratio of 15:1 really doesn’t cut it … Another pain in the ass are the guys with 1 kHz splatter signals. If they start CQing 100 Hz next to you you can only pack in. Is my signal too clean? Don’t they hear me? Maybe I should buy such a 30 years old unmodified clicky FT-1000, too, to keep them on distance …
Enough grumbling, all in all it was still fun although not record-breaking. 😉 There are simply too many much better CW operators than myself. You have to know your limits. 😉 Looking forward to the start of sunspot cycle 25 with open high bands again. It’s simply much more fun then. 😉
CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW - 2019 Call: DH8BQA Class: SO(A)SB80 HP QTH: JO73ce Operating Time (hrs): 36 Summary: Band QSOs Zones Countries ------------------------------ 80: 1940 32 114 40: (3) 10: (1) ------------------------------ Total: 1874 32 114 Total Score = 420,918 Club: Bavarian Contest Club
Another fun afternoon with Annika! I had ordered two small kits recently. Decided to build up the first one today, a wooden manger with some lighting electronics. 😎
Doing the wood work.
Can you feel the fun? 😉
Soldering focusedly …
PCB done, all working! 🙂
Looks great on her window sill.
PCB attached to the manger.
Uwe, DL3BQA, was going for a serious 80 m entry as DMØY in this one. For me it was only a part time activity. Travelled the 420 km from Hamburg to the station after QRL on Friday and had to leave again Sunday afternoon to go back. My focus was rather on station testing the FLEX-6600 with an Apple iPad Pro as a control panel together with a Bluetooth jog dial as a VFO knob.
Running the FLEX-6600 with an Apple iPad Pro 12,9″ as control panel while the Windows laptop gets the serial and audio data from the FLEX all through network APIs … how cool’s that? 😎
Unfortunately I had some trouble with RFI into the footswitch connection which was through an USB-Serial adapter into the Windows laptop (and then through another network API to the FLEX) when operating on 10 m so all 28 MHz QSOs were done using low power only. Another challenge was the FLEX needing DAX to be enabled for the canned voice messages from N1MM+ to play CQ calls etc. while I was using headphone audio through the iPad for talking directly. It turned out that while enabling DAX the local VOX would still work ok-ish so used that combination. Not optimum, something to dig into during the next few weeks, there must be some easier (and more reliable) way for SSB …
Decided to participate as SOSB15(A) but couldn’t resist to stray onto 10 m every now and then as there were some nice openings! 😎 Condx were quite bad on Saturday – Aurora disturbances! I managed to work just 2 U.S. stations with great difficulty to have the double mults in the log at least! In the late evening there was some great Aurora-E propagation (kind of Sporadic-E triggered by Aurora and working northerly [from here] only) but unfortunately almost nobody QRV on the high bands anymore. 🙁 Did a quick QSY with Peter, SM2CEW (an old VHF addict like myself), from 15 to 10 m and even we both did not retune our amps from 15 m but were only using drive power on 10 m (i.e. around 50-60 watts) we worked easily … in fact signals were even louder on 10 m low power than on 15 m with high power! 😎
15 m was busy wall to wall on Sunday …
… and 10 m opened nicely, too!
Sunday was much better, added another 115 North American stations in the afternoon, most with lots of QSB and mediocre signal strength only but some nice (albeit short) runs at times, too. If I would not have QSY’d to 10 m every now and then it might have been 700-750 QSOs on 15 m but probably not more, at least not from our north-easterly location. It was astounding (and frustrating, too) to regularly hear known low power stations from south and west Germany beat me calling stations while using high power and a 6 ele monobander overhere so I don’t want to know how low power stations up here would feel about it … yes, location matters! 😉
CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB - 2019 Call: DH8BQA Class: SO(A)SB15 HP QTH: JO73ce Operating Time (hrs): 18:30 Summary: Band QSOs Zones Countries ------------------------------ 160: (12) 80: 40: (22) 20: 15: 660 30 127 10: (82) ------------------------------ Total: 660 30 127 Total Score = 197,192 Club: Bavarian Contest Club
Part time (remote) activity this year only as I was attending a funeral on Saturday and had my mom visiting over the weekend. The FLEX played quite well remotely in general. But it seems the foot switch PTT through a virtual COM port does not work as reliable as it should, looks like a known bug from a bit of searching the Flex internet archive. Will have to see how the announced next version of Flexradio firmware will work with it.
Condx were quite good, 15 m even opened nicely with loud signals into the U.S. which was rather unexpected! Let’s see if condx will hold until next weekend’s CQ WWDX SSB!
Worked All Germany Contest - 2019 Call: DH8BQA Class: SO Mixed HP QTH: JO73ce Operating Time (hrs): 12 Remote Operation Summary: Band CW Qs SSB Qs Mults ---------------------------- 80: 112 156 34 40: 100 114 42 20: 109 24 32 15: 52 18 19 10: 32 7 9 ---------------------------- Total: 405 319 136 Total Score = 245,072 Club: Bavarian Contest Club Comments: FLEX-6600, KPA500/KAT500, 80/40m dipoles, 20m 4L, 15/10m 6L each
Just a few QSOs while playing around Sunday afternoon (i.e. much less effort than last year). Really like the format of distance based scoring as well as exchanging grid squares. Must be the VHF genes in me. 😀 Some nice QSOs into the U.S. West coast on 20 m …
Makrothen RTTY Contest Call: DH8BQA Class: SO/Single Xcvr HP QTH: JO73ce Operating Time (hrs): 6 Summary: Band QSOs ------------ 40: 32 20: 152 15: 18 ------------ Total: 202 Total Score = 835.847 Comments: FLEX-6600, KPA500 + 40 m dipole, 20 m 4L, 15 m 6L Yagi
Uwe, DL3BQA, was going for a serious 80 m effort. The guys had installed our 80 m GP antenna behind the 15 m beam again so a bit of distance to the 40 & 20 m antennas giving me a chance to play on all the other bands without too much interference. 😎
I was not up for a serious single band entry, rather played around with the new Flexradio setup, making sure all’s working flawlessly together including N1MM+ and trying out some of the superb software integration features as posting packet spots from N1MM+ through an API into the bandmap/scope of the Flex. 😎
Cluster spots integrated into the Flex’ bandscope – great feature! 😎
Condx were rather bad, earth’ magnetic field was still quite distorted from Friday evening, not much DX and couldn’t get much going trying to run. Still being a bit poor from a recent cold I made several breaks. All in all it didn’t help for a good result on Saturday.
Took a good night’s sleep and everything was much better on Sunday, condx as well as my health. 🙂 Had a great 1,5 hours run on 40 m with almost 90/hour max! That felt like being on the DX side of the pileup bringing back nice memories of our Belize trip earlier this year. 😉 Another good hour with almost 50 QSOs later on 20 m but although it’s really not bad for being an average station in DL / Europe amongst thousands of others it still felt kinda slow. Of course much better than running at 25/hour if at all in other hours … really looking forward to the next sunspot maximum for some more fun again! Rumors are it will be around 2024 …
CQ Worldwide DX Contest, RTTY - 2019 Call: DH8BQA Class: SO(A)AB HP QTH: JO73ce Operating Time (hrs): 25:30 Summary: Band QSOs State/Prov DX Zones ------------------------------------ 80: 1 1 1 40: 286 6 65 18 20: 225 26 64 23 15: 65 31 11 10: 27 12 4 ------------------------------------ Total: 604 32 173 57 Total Score = 351,866 Club: Bavarian Contest Club
Took part in the VHF September contest a.k.a. the IARU VHF contest last weekend as a small team from the club station again. Equipment played well, lucky with the weather (just some drizzle Saturday evening) and good company, what else is needed? 😉
Condx were quite okay and I had the impression that participation was quite good, too, at least on Saturday. Amazing to get number 807 from DA0FF at 02z Sunday morning already with still 12 hours to go, i.e. at half-time! Wonder how many QSOs they did in total …
YT4B and IQ5NN with 1.080 km are meanwhile almost regulars although the Italians really struggled this time to pull our signal out of the noise even when they were a solid 529 over here … seems our QRO plus 10 ele Yagi are not yet enough? 😐
Signal of IQ5NN, well over 1.000 km away:
Great to catch IQ4FD for a third one over the “magic” 1.000 km distance. 😎 A pity we didn’t catch YU7ACO this time (another one > 1.000 km). Never found them on the band and they didn’t react in the ON4KST chat, would usually have been another save QSO. 🙁 But we worked YU7C as an all time new one instead with a great distance, too. Ukrainian UR7D was extremely loud! Did they do some power upgrade? 😀 Heard them quite often even beaming far away from direct path …
UR7D – “only” 773 km away but very loud:
SN7L was wide as hell again (like during July VHF contest), not good. 🙁 Heard a few more different wide signals, too, but none of them as bad as SN7L.
All in all we are satisfied. Our claimed result is exactly the same as last year, amazing! 😎 But we made 9 QSOs less so the kilometers per QSO average is a bit higher this year. 😉
Contest Report from DF0TEC in JO73CE at 144 MHz
===============================================
Contest : IARU-VHF-Contest '19
Date : 2019 Sep 07 to 2019 Sep 08
Section : 02 144 MHz Multi-OP
QTH : Woltersdorf
Co-OPs : DG1BHA;DH8BQA;DL3BQA;DM5DX
TX : IC-9700 + PA, 750 W
RX : IC-9700 + MGF1302
Antenna : 10 ele DK7ZB Yagi, 20 mAGL, 70 mASL
Log : TACLog by OZ2M, 1,995, http://www.qsl.net/oz2m
QSOs : 442
-invalid: 1 Points/QSO
-valid : 441 QSO-points (*1) : 183430 416
WWLs : 93 WWL bonus (0) : 0 0
DXCCs : 22 DXCC bonus (0) : 0 0
------------------------------ ------
Total score : 183430 416
ODX : YT4B in JN94SD at 1079 km
Worked World Wide Locators:
JN29: 1 JN76: 5 JO11: 1 JO54: 1 JO72: 8 JP70: 1
JN38: 2 JN77: 3 JO20: 2 JO55: 2 JO73: 10 JP90: 1
JN39: 5 JN78: 3 JO21: 2 JO57: 1 JO75: 1 KN06: 1
JN47: 3 JN79: 17 JO30: 7 JO58: 1 JO76: 1 KN08: 1
JN48: 7 JN85: 1 JO31: 20 JO59: 1 JO77: 1 KN09: 5
JN49: 9 JN86: 4 JO32: 5 JO60: 12 JO79: 2 KN18: 1
JN56: 1 JN87: 5 JO33: 2 JO61: 24 JO80: 6 KO02: 3
JN57: 1 JN88: 8 JO40: 5 JO62: 24 JO81: 4 KO04: 1
JN58: 4 JN89: 12 JO41: 9 JO63: 2 JO83: 2 KO05: 1
JN59: 1 JN94: 1 JO42: 11 JO64: 3 JO84: 2 KO13: 1
JN63: 2 JN95: 5 JO43: 8 JO65: 4 JO89: 1 KO14: 1
JN65: 1 JN97: 2 JO46: 1 JO67: 2 JO90: 7 KO15: 1
JN67: 1 JN98: 3 JO50: 18 JO68: 1 JO91: 1 KO20: 1
JN68: 3 JN99: 13 JO51: 15 JO70: 18 JO93: 1 KO24: 1
JN69: 8 JO01: 1 JO52: 11 JO71: 13 JO94: 6 KO25: 3
JN75: 2 JO10: 1 JO53: 4
Worked DXCCs:
9A : 7 G : 1 LA : 1 OM : 15 S5 : 8 UA2: 1
DL : 216 HA : 9 LY : 7 ON : 3 SM : 16 UR : 2
EU : 1 HB : 2 OE : 11 OZ : 5 SP : 53 YU : 2
F : 5 I : 3 OK : 68 PA : 5
Top 10 QSO-points:
20190908 0139 YT4B 559 263 599 224 JN94SD 1079
20190908 0252 IQ5NN 599 273 599 472 JN63GN 1078
20190908 0259 IQ4FD 559 274 599 230 JN63AX 1037
20190908 0341 9A0V 599 279 599 293 JN95PE 963
20190908 0225 9A8D 519 268 599 187 JN95LM 919
20190908 0327 9A7D 599 277 599 195 JN95CI 918
20190908 1336 YU7C 559 437 599 310 JN95SS 910
20190908 0318 G8P 599 276 599 541 JO01QD 903
20190907 2159 9A6K 59 213 59 190 JN95GO 900
20190907 2153 9A1N 59 210 59 269 JN85LI 894
My V37DX world-wins in this year’s CQ WPX RTTY as well as the ARRL DX CW I took part in from Belize are officially confirmed now. 😎
A few technical problems on the start but big fun and great victory. 😎
Hard competition with TM5Y/F8DBF and a new country record, too. 😎
As you may have read we have two shacks at our station. One serves as the HF/6 m shack and is usually used by Uwe, DL3BQA. The other one we call the VHF shack which holds a permanent station for 2 m as well as my remote setup. Furthermore I use it for local HF contesting, too, setting up my K3 or IC-7300 additionally. Unfortunately the VHF shack is not that big and with our current installation there’s simply too much stuff and all quite cluttered, i.e. no space for a better monitor, laptop in front of the gear when set up for HF contesting, a.s.o. To be honest I got tired of it so decided to use some spare time this week to change it … for the better I hope! 😉
Old VHF shack layout, all cluttered and little space only. Temporary HF setup normally at the right where the tools lay.
All equipment ripped out of the shack, temporarily parked in our outer room. Quite some stuff, isn’t it?
I constructed a new shack table and shelving system from scratch. Most of the wooden elements needed were already available so the total investment was less than 100 EUR. One major upgrade was eliminating the remote system shelves on the left-hand side thus providing a bit more space for the operating positions. All in all it took about 4 afternoons with most of the time needed to clear the shack and then recabling everything again. 😀 Maybe the following photos will give some inspiration for others wanting to do it themselves, too.
First home-made table legs are ready.
First side part done.
You can already imagine how it might look like finally.
A few planks for better stability and to mount monitors on.
Result of the first afternoon and evening of wood work.
Added two more planks for stability of the tabletop.
Last step of vacation of the shack was taking the remote system shelves apart.
The whole wood construction moved into the shack, thanks Uwe for the helping hand.
Extending the tabletop to 80 cm depth.
Tabletop mounted – looks great, doesn’t it?
Checking height of the first shelf with the metal feet to be mounted temporarily upside-down.
Final assembly of the metal feet. An extra plank is used for additional stability. There will be a bit of weight on the shelf.
Left work place with our IC-9700 finalized. 😎 2 m PA is below the table.
Used some spare wood for a littler higher placement of the rotator controllers.
Elecraft KPA500 amplifier, KAT500 tuner, power supply and homebrew 10×2 antenna controller for automatic antenna selection.
Next to the PS is the new Flex-6600. On top of it the network switch connecting all the remote stuff.
The Flex is connected through a BPF bank to the KPA500 and is also used as an IF rig for the 4 & 2 m bands.
SSPA for 2 m capable of 800 W and (just to the right of the PA) NETIOs for switching mains power on/off.
Final look. The right work place already got parts of it’s IT, too. Can use the Flex on the shelf or an additional local radio. A second shelf above the remote station stuff added as well. The empty space (well, sort of, hi) on the right side of the lower shelf will be filled by another HF amp which first needs some service.
Some black & white art work. 😉
Some colour artwork, too. 😎
Moving QTH is basically finished, everything’s setup in the new flat … living room, kitchen, children’s room, a.s.o. all operational, just the shack/office needs a bit more work. 😀 Anyway, time to play some radio again in the Perseids meteor shower! 😎
Multiple stations in one reflection, nicely sorted on the screen – one of the advantages of the MSK144 mode.
Activity was quite nice, especially from Russia! Worked a lot of new callsigns and a lot I had only worked on HF before! While I had written last year that about 30% of the traffic was on MSK144 and 70% on FSK441 it was the other way round this year – 70% on MSK144 and 30% on FSK441, if at all! While I see the benefits of MSK144 – it’s quite convenient with no false decodes, no digging into the decodes to see what’s in there, all printed nicely on the screen, a.s.o. – it certainly doesn’t fit the bill for working the real DX.
What most people (especially the converts from HF FT8 to VHF MSK144) do not know is that MSK144 also has some (serious) drawbacks compared to FSK441! It’s about 2-3 dB less sensitive and due to it’s FEC (forward error correction) it needs reflections of at least 200 ms length to decode at all! So a reflection of 80/1 (80 ms seconds long, 1 dB over the noise, not uncommon) will not be decoded in MSK144 while in FSK441 it’s usually good for a (partial) call and report! Especially on long haul DX, i.e. over 2.000 or even 2.100 km, or with QRP, it can make all the difference between a complete QSO and an NC contact!
Another thing new guys didn’t know is that while 15 seconds periods are the standard on 6 & 4 m and the default in WSJT-X 🙁 it’s usually 30 seconds periods on 2 m, at least on the calling frequencies! Reason is keeping it “compliant” to FSK441 which is 30 seconds. So besides the “usual” QRM by people using the wrong periods there was some additional chaos by people running 15 sec periods while everybody else was on 30 sec. Seems some elmering is needed which I did for a few people I had access to. They were all grateful to get the advice how to do it right as it were usually their first steps into the world of VHF digital. Just keep in mind they do not do it intentionally! We were all beginners at some time … 😉
Highlight on the 8/8 was working RW3TJ, always thrilled to cross the line into the LOxx squares. 😉 Not exactly VHF but working PZ5CO and FY5KE with good signals on 10 m late at night on the 9/8 was thrilling, too! The path works quite often even in sunspot minimum, worked them again during the weekend handing out some points in the WAE-CW contest on HF, too. 😉 Did not expect to work (m)any new squares on 2 m during the shower but after almost an hour I completed with OY1R for a new one. It took that long because Regin is only running QRP (50 W to a 7 ele Yagi) so only very strong reflections will work.
Spent quite a while to work Mek, this time in Hungary (JN97) as HA/SP7VC, for a new one on 4 m on 10/8. These QSOs are extra difficult as I’m QRP only on 4 m and the distance is normally too short for MS so lots of patience needed – thanks mate! YO8SAO/KN36 and UT9NA/KN49 were much easier for additional new ones on 2 m. 🙂 I was very excited when I decoded R9JBN with his CQ on 144.360 MHz MSK144 at 20.18z! Could it really be Asiatic Russia on 2 m? But his CQ message included LO13 as his locator which is definitely not UA9 but UA4 so I guess he was rather /4. Still a nice distance of +/- 1.900 km. Unfortunately that CQ burst was the only thing I heard from him …
A full period of reflections by the C37MS DXpedition during our QSO. The burst was indeed almost 1 min long. 😎
Very happy with another 4 new ones on 2 m on the 11/8, namely YO8TNB/KN37, RA1TL/KO67, UT3MD/KN99 and LA/SM5EPO/JP76. PeO had been traveling Scandinavia for 2 weeks activating rare grids for the MS community, thanks a lot, man, appreciated the opportunity!
Didn’t work much on 6 m as it’s usually the same guys over and over again on 6 m MS, not that much activity there. The band provides plenty of opportunities with Sporadic-E during the summer, that’s probably the reason why there’s a lot less interest in Meteor Scatter on Six. But when TA4SO/KM47 was spotted on the cluster I couldn’t resist to check if I would see some reflections, distance is well over 2.000 km. And there he was! As I could copy him almost consistently over quite some time (just an awful lot of QSB) I think it was rather ES than MS. But no matter what, he provided the only new one on 6 m. 😉
The 12/8 saw our friends from Dresden (DH5FS & Co.) getting active from the Ukraine as EM44T activating rare square KN38! 😎 They had blown their 2 m pre-amp transistor right away so had to do some surgery in the field, i.e. ripping out the transistor of the 70 cm pre-amp to put it into the 2 m transverter pre-amp, luckily it was the same type! They produced excellent reflections on both 6 & 2 m although the distance is quite short already. But it seemed they had trouble hearing on 6 m, something to be checked when back home.
OH7TE was visiting some relatives and took his 4 m gear along and spent some time on the air, thanks for KP42 on that band, Yussi! UT7KF/KO21 took quite a while to complete on 2 m, again a very short distance for MS and only QRP there. On the contrary UA6LQZ/LN09 produced excellent reflections over quite some long distance! Wonder what equipment he was running! 😉 R1OAK/LP05 was over 2.000 km so decided to try on FSK441. He has only 100 W and a long yagi so I expected it would take a while to complete (if at all) but surprisingly he produced some really nice reflections so we were done after 15 minutes already. 😎
Another contact to mention is certainly the one with UT8AL/KO61. I have worked Alex numerous times during past years, be it on HF in contests or on 6 m or on 2 m via ES, MS and even TR. Our first QSO (SSB-MS!) was on 12/8/1999, so exactly 20 years ago! 😎 What makes every 2 m QSO with him so special is knowing he’s only running a very old analogue FT-225RD from 1972, nominally putting out 20 watts which makes it just 16 watts at his antenna which is an almost as old 21 ele KLM yagi on a 12 m boom! Seems his antenna is doing all the work, he was really fireworking with this QRPPP setup!
A full period snapshot of my reflections during a 2 minutes mega burst as recorded by UT6EY.
The maximum was predicted to be early morning of the 13/8. Judging from length and number of reflections I think it was rather on the 12/8 around 22 o’clock. Stef, F4EZJ, asked to try SSB-MS as reflections were still quite good on 13/8. There was a biiiiig burst right away when he started calling me so we completed immediately and had a great one burst QSO. 😎 Pity neither of us had a recorder handy … Icing on the cake was the ES opening on 4 m in the afternoon. While it was very much in & out it was good enough to provide another two new squares. 🙂
In total I made over 100 QSOs, the full log can be viewed here. All in all some fun time on VHF again and happy with the (unexpected) results (of working so many new squares). 😉
The big Optibeam sure makes for a good signal. Additonal temporary antennas for all bands (20 & 10 m to be seen in the background) are very helpful for the multiplier station, too.
I was invited to join the DK3R team on Rügen Island, EU-057, during this year’s IOTA contest again – an invitation I happily accepted although it interfered a little with our move to Hamburg. 😀 But I somehow managed to organize both in parallel so was looking forward to the trip to Rügen last weekend.
We were quite lucky with the weather on Saturday but had some rain early Sunday morning. Radio conditions were rather mixed, too. There was the occassional Sporadic-E opening on the higher HF bands useful to collect some multipliers but besides this we didn’t spend too much time on 15 & 10 m. Even with good openings it’s not very efficient as long as the band is not open to the UK. You need to work all the 15 pointers! So the “money bands” were 20 & 40 m once more.
Our QSO total lacked quite a bit behind last year’s result during Saturday, i.e. we had up to 140 QSOs less in the log. Still we were on par in total result meaning we could make up for the loss in QSOs by working more island stations and more multipliers. The night shift on 80 & 40 m did an extremely good job, i.e. worked many more QSOs and especially mults than we had hoped for, so we were not that much behind Sunday morning anymore. Interestingly the receive antennas for the low bands specifically set up in the field behind the property didn’t provide any advantage. Signals were equally loud (or even louder) on the transmit antennas. Guess it only means the location is quite quiet. 😉
At the end there was still a 55 QSOs difference but the total result was way better than last year. In fact it’s the second highest result ever done by the team from this location!
Judging from the posted results on 3830scores.com it should be good enough for another world win after last year! 😎 This would be my 4th one this year this time being part of a great team of experienced contesters!
Interestingly our result is even a little better than the LZØI team’s who participated M/2 and made 1.600 QSOs more (i.e. more than 4.300 QSOs in total!) but 120 less multipliers as well as 25 % less points/QSO average although they operate in a much better location propagation-wise. Seems they concentrated a lot more on just running whom-ever called which is fun, of course, but probably not the best strategy. 😉
What a great team! L-to-R: Falk – DK7YY, Burkhard – DL3KZA, Oliver – DL2ARD, Andreas – DL1KZA, Michael – DG1CMZ, Olli – DH8BQA, Jürgen – DL7UVO, Oliver – DJ9AO
I think in the name of the whole team we can only say a big fat THANK YOU to Andreas (DL1KZA), Burkhard (DL3KZA) and families for their fantastic hospitality, the delicious food and care taken for us, as well as Oliver (DL2ARD) for being a great team leader taking care of all the needed stuff and spending his time already a week upfront the contest to set up antennas, station, a.s.o. Looking forward to next year already. 😎
Noel, OO4O, and Burkhard, DL3KZA, with their respective XYLs.
After the contest we were visited by Noel, OO4O, and his lovely wife. Noel participated from Rügen, too. In fact his holiday rental house was just 5 km away from our location. 😉 He took it quite leisure doing about 400 QSOs low power using a Spiderbeam and wire antennas. He has been visiting a new island during the IOTA contest every year for the last 10 years now, see some impressions on his qrz.com profile. It seems they liked Rügen Island a lot. Indeed it is a big recommendation for visitors of Eastern-German beach locations as well as Usedom Island (EU-129), too. 😉
I had left the IC-7300 switched on during the contest to monitor 4 m propagation as an indicator for possible 2 m ES. There was indeed an opening just not here. 🙁 When I saw EI9E/P pop up on the bandscope with an S9++ signal I couldn’t resist to give him some points, too. 😉
EI9E/P contesting via Sporadic-E on 4 m:
Also worked two new ones with 5T5PA and 9G2HO on 6 m. This is were digital works out nicely besides CW/SSB on another band in parallel. 😉 KM15 was new square on 4 m and then there was another short 5 min opening on 4 m after the contest …
------------------------------------------------------------------ TIME CALLSIGN LOCATOR TX RX BAND MODE PROP. QRB ------------------------------------------------------------------ 10:06 EI9E/P IO62OM 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1406 10:21 5T5PA IL1ØLW -02 +07 6 m. FT8 ES 4461 10:21 9G2HO JJØ6FO -13 -06 6 m. FT8 ES 5326 12:26 SV9/OV3T KM15VM -04 -14 4 m. FT8 ES 2102 14:08 YO7BSN KN15PB -03 -09 4 m. FT8 ES 1117 14:10 LZ1ZL KN22JD +02 -13 4 m. FT8 ES 1457 ------------------------------------------------------------------
Another July contest in the books. Condx were rather average most of the time. The night hours brought some nice DX so the average per QSO was 420 km which is unusually high. Around 400 km/QSO is quite normal for a July contest from up here but again as last year I missed lots of OK/OM stations that normally help to higher the QSO average so it was rather unexpected. On the other hand there were some really great tropo DX contacts to the west with good signals …
F8KGU – 923 km:
G5LK/P – 903 km:
G4ZAP/P – 886 km:
Not that nice was the signal quality of some of the participants. The worst example was probably SN7L who was up to 40 kHz wide even with antennas pointing into different directions. 🙁
SN7L on 144.170 MHz using a big part of the spectrum alone due to his bad wide signal. 🙁 And this was over a 285 km (!!!) path not even beaming at him! Won’t imagine how bad it must have been for stations nearby … 🙁
Our new IC-9700 played quite well. I was really sastified with it’s perfomance. Of course the bandscope was/is a big plus as already experienced with the 7300 on other bands, too. If you search the band you stop at signals shown on the bandscope although there’s no signal currently audible as the station that was transmitting there was just listening himself, i.e. for a QSO exchange or the like. In former times you would have simply tuned further and probably missed that station. 😎
But of course the best radio can’t help overall activity which I found lacking again. Total result is on par with last year but that was not a good one either. Seems it will only be place 3 this year as besides Tom, DR1H, who can’t be beaten from up here, also Michael, DL6IAK/P, put in a very good result with over 200k points unchecked …
Contest Report from DH8BQA in JO73CE at 144 MHz
===============================================
Contest : DARC JULY '19
Date : 2019 Jul 06 to 2019 Jul 07
Section : 01 144MHz Single OP
QTH : Woltersdorf
TX : IC-9700 + PA, 750 W
RX : IC-9700 + ATF 54143
Antenna : 10 ele DK7ZB Yagi, 20 mAGL, 70 mASL
Log : TACLog by OZ2M, 1,995, http://www.qsl.net/oz2m
QSOs : 346
-invalid: 0 Points/QSO
-valid : 346 QSO-points (*1) : 145003 419
WWLs : 79 WWL bonus (0) : 0 0
DXCCs : 21 DXCC bonus (0) : 0 0
------------------------------ ------
Total score : 145003 419
ODX : YT4B in JN94SD at 1079 km
Worked World Wide Locators:
JN19: 1 JN78: 2 JO01: 2 JO43: 10 JO64: 5 JO91: 1
JN37: 1 JN79: 17 JO02: 4 JO44: 2 JO65: 3 JO94: 1
JN38: 1 JN85: 2 JO11: 1 JO46: 1 JO67: 2 JP90: 1
JN39: 3 JN86: 3 JO20: 4 JO50: 9 JO70: 12 KN05: 1
JN47: 2 JN87: 2 JO21: 2 JO51: 14 JO71: 10 KN08: 1
JN48: 7 JN88: 7 JO22: 1 JO52: 7 JO72: 6 KN09: 2
JN49: 7 JN89: 10 JO30: 7 JO53: 6 JO73: 3 KN18: 1
JN58: 4 JN94: 1 JO31: 13 JO55: 1 JO74: 1 KO04: 2
JN59: 5 JN95: 2 JO32: 2 JO59: 1 JO77: 1 KO05: 1
JN68: 5 JN96: 1 JO33: 2 JO60: 11 JO80: 10 KO13: 1
JN69: 5 JN97: 4 JO40: 3 JO61: 12 JO82: 1 KO14: 1
JN75: 1 JN98: 4 JO41: 8 JO62: 22 JO83: 2 KO15: 2
JN76: 2 JN99: 11 JO42: 12 JO63: 1 JO90: 2 KO25: 3
JN77: 2
Worked DXCCs:
9A : 4 G : 6 LY : 6 ON : 3 S5 : 5 UA2: 4
DL : 183 HA : 8 OE : 6 OZ : 3 SM : 7 UR : 1
EU : 1 HB : 2 OK : 63 PA : 8 SP : 12 YU : 2
F : 3 LA : 1 OM : 18
Top 20 QSO-points:
20190707 0745 YT4B 559 262 599 280 JN94SD 1079
20190707 0507 YU7ACO 559 231 559 295 KN05RD 1037
20190706 2304 9A0V 559 212 599 251 JN95PE 963
20190707 0005 G3PYE/P 559 219 559 141 JO02CE 949
20190706 2104 F8KGU 59 188 59 342 JN19BQ 923
20190706 2258 9A8D 55 211 59 155 JN95LM 919
20190706 2158 G5LK/P 55 203 56 337 JO01QD 903
20190706 2316 9A1N 559 213 599 194 JN85LI 894
20190706 2051 G3XDY 559 183 599 038 JO02OB 886
20190706 2155 G4ZAP/P 59 202 57 329 JO01PU 886
20190707 0843 G4SWX 529 278 529 002 JO02RF 865
20190707 1100 9A1E 559 314 599 280 JN85QT 852
20190706 2336 G4CDN 579 217 589 011 JO02SS 849
20190706 1750 HG3X 59 123 59 083 JN96EE 834
20190706 2253 S59DEM 59 210 59 380 JN75DS 825
20190706 1908 HB9EWY 59 151 59 179 JN37WA 821
20190706 2011 SF40RO 529 179 559 001 JP90JA 810
20190707 0015 HB9GF 59 220 59 270 JN47BC 803
20190707 0439 LA0BY 419 225 519 002 JO59IX 785
20190706 2224 UZ3I 599 207 599 197 KN18JT 773
Had a big opening to Japan on 6 m this morning lasting well over 4 hours, wow! Up to 25 different JA calls per RX period in FT8 but rather difficult to do any QSOs at all. Either too big pileups or too QRP over here so only a limited number of contacts. Besides the JAs there were 8 different Korean stations copyable, too. But I needed 1,5 hours to raise at least one of them for a new DXCC. That was quite frustrating as some of them were really loud, think CW with split would have worked much better and easier. But in the end I catched one so a happy camper … and a few new squares, too. 😎
Was literally running between the HF/6 m shack and the VHF shack not to miss anything on 6 and 4 m as the latter opened nicely, too. So I was happy when Uwe came along and took over the JA opening on 6 m so I could concentrate on Four. 😉 One open direction was to the east which could be expected with the great 6 m condx …
Three different OIRT stations on 70.040, 70.070 and 70.160 MHz respectively rendering the whole band unusable.
The 70.070 MHz OIRT radio station which is a frequent “visitor” is strong enough to wipe out half the band alone!
The other one was to Scotland! Think I can apply for the WAS 4 m now … not the usual Worked All States but Worked all Scotland. 😀 IO87 was a new one and the band was open almost 3 hours to Scotland but unfortunately no more active stations, what a pity.
------------------------------------------------------------------ TIME CALLSIGN LOCATOR TX RX BAND MODE PROP. QRB ------------------------------------------------------------------ 06:50 JH7XRZ QMØ9MV -01 -04 6 m. FT8 ES 8474 07:00 JF8QNF QNØ2 -10 -18 6 m. FT8 ES 8221 07:22 JO4GGN PM75BB -09 -17 6 m. FT8 ES 8622 07:25 JH3VJV PM74LP -09 -19 6 m. FT8 ES 8701 07:36 JA1ANR PM96 -08 -17 6 m. FT8 ES 8713 07:39 JM1IGJ PM95RL -06 -16 6 m. FT8 ES 8832 07:55 JR1LZK QMØ6FI -10 -14 6 m. FT8 ES 8792 08:02 JA7WSZ QMØ7LP -05 -14 6 m. FT8 ES 8689 08:14 JH7RXU QMØ9HM -14 -13 6 m. FT8 ES 8493 08:35 DS3CHK PM36RP -09 -12 6 m. FT8 ES 8143 ------------------------------------------------------------------ 07:59 GM4VVX IO78TA +18 +13 4 m. FT8 ES 1279 08:19 GM4FVM IO85WU +00 +09 4 m. FT8 ES 1092 08:21 GM4ZMK IO75TW -05 -06 4 m. FT8 ES 1232 08:39 GM7PKT IO76JR -04 +08 4 m. FT8 ES 1295 08:44 GMØVGI IO87TH -01 +13 4 m. FT8 ES 1143 08:47 GM4OBD IO87XI 57 57 4 m. SSB ES 1125 08:57 GM8IEM IO78HF +03 +17 4 m. FT8 ES 1342 09:21 GI4OWA IO64IX -02 -15 4 m. FT8 ES 1410 09:51 GM4ZMK IO75TW 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1232 ------------------------------------------------------------------
A day off QRL so used the time to finally install our new IC-9700 at the club station. Eager to learn how it performs in heavy contest use on 2 m this weekend. 😉
Also brought along the IC-7300 for 4 m, just in case. There was some nice Sporadic-E eastwards with big OIRT signals. Unfortunately no 4 m (and 6 m) licenses in Russia else it would probably have been a fun opening. 😉 Propagation shortly shifted northwards to allow working Finland on 4 m which is quite rare from here as we’re usually too close!
Big OIRT signal centered on 70.190 MHz basically rendering the band useless!
Uwe was working intensively on 6 m again. I just had to interrupt him when JW7QIA popped up to work a new one. 😎 During the past years I was never lucky enough to catch him. The distance is quite difficult: 2.700 km is way too far for one hop ES and getting 2 hops perfectly aligned in those northern spheres is rare, too! So happy to have finally made it, one of the last needed countries on 6 m in Europe …
------------------------------------------------------------------ TIME CALLSIGN LOCATOR TX RX BAND MODE PROP. QRB ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:54 OH3CT KP21GA -03 +16 4 m. FT8 ES 1069 17:07 OH6DX KP32EQ -05 +11 4 m. FT8 ES 1272 18:06 JW7QIA JQ68TB +05 -01 6 m. FT8 ES 2765 ------------------------------------------------------------------
The lower VHF bands were hot again today! 😎 Uwe, DL3BQA, was very busy working a great North America opening on 6 m with lots of new squares for him. Although it was again much better elsewhere no need to complain, this time JO73 got a good share of propagation, too. 😉 I concentrated on packing stuff for our move to Hamburg which is more important currently but kept an eye on 4 m. The band opened rather late! EA1VM provided a new square with IN72 and Alex, EA8DBM, was in via double-hop, too. Heard another EA8 briefly on SSB but couldn’t make a QSO.
------------------------------------------------------------------ TIME CALLSIGN LOCATOR TX RX BAND MODE PROP. QRB ------------------------------------------------------------------ 19:26 EA1VM IN72RC +04 +00 4 m. FT8 ES 1858 19:34 EA1BNF IN52OF +00 +00 4 m. FT8 ES 2093 19:35 EA1HRR IN83JJ -02 +07 4 m. FT8 ES 1679 19:41 EA8DBM IL18OH +05 -08 4 m. FT8 ES 3747 19:42 EA1CRK IN73DM -03 -09 4 m. FT8 ES 1812 20:07 CT1EEB IN5ØQR 52 55 4 m. SSB ES 2201 ------------------------------------------------------------------
Also couldn’t resist to work my good friend Paul as TK/DL5CW. After we met in Friedrichshafen he moved on with his XYL down to Corsica for a 2 weeks holiday and did a few QSOs inbetween holiday activities, too. Worked him first on 40 m CW where he was around 559. Then saw 10 m wide open and TK4LS being 59 on SSB Paul then QSY’d to 10 m CW where he was a solid s9 signal, too. 😎 Finished off with another contact on 80 m CW before he closed down to prepare everything to go back to Germany. Tnx QSOs, mate! You’re indeed a True Blue DXer. 😉
High MUF across Western Europe and several ES openings on 144 MHz … all at least 400 km west or 300 km south of me, so no joy. Even difficult to catch something on 4 m but finally had a great opening to EA6. Sorrily all EA6’s on FT8 only with s9++ signals, only EA6SA being an exception, tnx CW contact, Josep! Would not have expected to work him 1,5 hours later again on 2 m. 😎
Quite a late opening on 144 MHz mainly between the U.K. and Italy and me being too close to these new ES clouds. So MUF had to climb much higher to allow QSOs on shorter path’, i.e. 1.200 km in my case to Southern France. F6EGD was not complete, weak signal and only for 2 or 3 periods. Likewise with F1JG, heard (seen) for two periods and gone. He was in again half an hour later and just long enough to complete the QSO then. Guess I worked almost all active EA6 VHFers. 😉
------------------------------------------------------------------ TIME CALLSIGN LOCATOR TX RX BAND MODE PROP. QRB ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:28 EA6VQ JM19MP +11 +05 4 m. FT8 ES 1727 16:29 EA6SX JM19IK +09 +10 4 m. FT8 ES 1760 16:38 EA6FB JMØ8PW +12 +12 4 m. FT8 ES 1865 16:41 EA5TT IM99SL +07 -08 4 m. FT8 ES 1887 16:44 EB5GC IM97JX -12 -18 4 m. FT8 ES 2063 17:14 EA6SA JM19LO 599 599 4 m. CW ES 1734 17:55 EA3BMU JNØ1OC -03 -18 4 m. FT8 ES 1659 18:13 EA3EW JNØ1OG +08 +02 4 m. FT8 ES 1643 ------------------------------------------------------------------ 18:35 F6EGD JN24MA -07 NC 2 m. FT8 ES 1219 18:40 EA6VQ JM19HN +18 +06 2 m. FT8 ES 1751 18:47 EA3BTZ JN11BI 59 59 2 m. SSB ES 1596 18:49 EA6SA JM19LO 59 59 2 m. SSB ES 1734 18:54 EA6XQ JM19LH +01 -07 2 m. FT8 ES 1763 19:09 F1JG JN23HQ +13 -06 2 m. FT8 ES 1268 19:11 EA3SI JN11DN -04 -16 2 m. FT8 ES 1569 ------------------------------------------------------------------
DK1FG & DL1NEO reported receiving (seeing) D41CV from Cap Verde on 2 m – that’s a 4.870 km path! I saw DK1FG calling him but no QSO was made. PE1CCM reported a QSO with 5T5PA on 144.174 FT8 (although I haven’t seen any confirmation of it yet). That’s a 4.000 km path, too. Probably a combination of ES + TR as there was strong tropo ducting along the West African coast line during the last days with regular QSOs between CT/EA and EA8/D4 so 5T5 would perfectly fit in. So much to still explore … 😎
Was occasionally checking the F5LEN Tropo Forecast and saw there might be some lift yesterday but was stuck with other duties so couldn’t make it to the station. Indeed there were tropo contacts well above 1.500 km from eastern Poland to the U.K. and even this morning still a few good contacts reported. But tropo shifted fast so there was not much left in the afternoon, only locals to be heard when back from QRL. Conditions came up a bit again later today but still with lots of QSB and most signals weak and in & out fast, obviously not comparable to yesterday. Under these condx FT8 does have an advantage and I was lucky to make use of it. None of the QSOs would have been possible in CW & SSB except G4CDN but I can work Richard daily anyway, even in CW. 😉
MØCGL was very loud at times, too, and I wondered why he had difficulties to pick up my signal and why he gave me such a bad signal strength report compared to his own signal, a difference of almost 20 db! Up to 10 dB difference is not unusual (assuming comparable equipment +/- a bit) depending on local circumstances like noise, QRM, (no) preamp, a.s.o. It took me a while to recognize I simply had forgotten to switch on the PA again after the condx break of 45 minutes. 😀 So the QSO was made with just 8 watts and the 9 ele GØKSC LFA Yagi over here. 😎
------------------------------------------------------------------ TIME CALLSIGN LOCATOR TX RX BAND MODE PROP. QRB ------------------------------------------------------------------ 15:37 MØCVX IO93RE -04 -03 2 m. FT8 TR 981 15:59 G4CDN JOØ2SS +15 +05 2 m. FT8 TR 848 16:01 G4TRA IO81WN -18 -17 2 m. FT8 TR 1120 16:12 G4HGI IO83PL -08 -13 2 m. FT8 TR 1121 16:58 MØCGL JOØ3BF +05 -16 2 m. FT8 TR 936 17:05 G4GFI IO91VH -15 -14 2 m. FT8 TR 1001 17:06 PDØNUD JO21NT -16 -11 2 m. FT8 TR 633 17:10 G4IJE JOØ1HP -10 -14 2 m. FT8 TR 935 17:37 2EØWDX IO94FW -14 -09 2 m. FT8 TR 1043 17:41 MØWGF JOØ1JK -10 -12 2 m. FT8 TR 931 17:51 G4ATX JOØ1MI -16 -09 2 m. FT8 TR 917 17:53 G4DHF IO92UU -14 -11 2 m. FT8 TR 969 17:58 MØPYU IO93SA -14 -12 2 m. FT8 TR 977 ------------------------------------------------------------------