Another contest over and we feel pretty pleased with the result. The propagation’s were not the best since the bands seemed slow to recover from the aurora on Friday morning. However they improved the longer the weekend went on and on Sunday the signals from NA were pretty good on at least 80m and decent on 160m. We are very happy about the 160m/80m result which are also the bands we have pretty much “completed” antenna systems which will only have some small improvements towards to the final design ideas at the station. 40m was for sure our weak point and with the kind of propagation’s now this SHOULD be our money band but it wasn’t, because of just using the 1/4 vertical. 20m was a huge disappointment. We have been listening on 20m for weeks with great openings in the evenings towards W6/W7 and sometimes even east coast openings but this time the bands closed rather early and they didn’t open up as well as they can do. However we had a fun opening to run a few west coast guys on 15m during Sunday evening just prior to the contest end, that was a blast.

Compared to the SSB part we had a point average on 20m which was around 2.3 pts/q, now we had around 1.7 pts/q so it’s a quite big difference. However we are happy about the multiplier total (considering 40m) and the number of qsos worked is also all OK. Next year we should imrpove this result A LOT when we have a more flexible station because we really need at least one good independent rotatable yagi on each band, making us able to work multipliers without affecting the run station.

[Show as slideshow]

We had the following setup:

Radios

RUN: FT2000 + Granger (1kW amp)

Mult: IC-7400 + ACOM1000

160m: FT1000D + 4-1000A

Antennas

160m: 37m high vert

80m: 4-SQ

40m: vertical

20m: 6el @55m + 3el @19m

15m: 6el @14m

10m: 6/6el @16/11m

I forgot my camera at the contest QTH so I don’t have any pictures to post right now. But I post some as soon as I get hold of them.

                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: SJ2W
Operator(s): SE2T SM2LIY SM2WMV SM3JLA
Station: SJ2W

Class: M/S HP
QTH: Da Traesk
Operating Time (hrs): 48

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:  720    24       82
   80:  899    31      111
   40:  443    31       98
   20: 1014    35      118
   15:  170    27       79
   10:    6     5        6
------------------------------
Total: 3252   153      494  Total Score = 3,469,666

Club: Worldwide Young Contesters

Comments:

3830 post

Some update of the activity this weekend. Summary from 3830 follows and also some pictures taken from the weekend.

                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB

Call: SJ2W
Operator(s): SM2LIY SM2WMV
Station: SJ2W

Class: M/S HP
QTH: Da Traesk
Operating Time (hrs): 47

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:  508    13       64
   80:  308    22       89
   40:  160    23       89
   20: 1633    38      139
   15:   97    23       75
   10:   35     8       32
------------------------------
Total: 2741   127      488  Total Score = 3,219,525

Club: Worldwide Young Contesters

Comments:

We did not plan a serious effort but we ended up working the contest for 47 hours anyway. Plans were to do some outside work during the weekend to get ready for CQWW CW but snow arrived which made the plans change.

The contest was operated in a very limited way. No rotator yet on the tower, could only rotate the tower between JA and USA over the north but luckily the temporary 3el yagi for 20m was pointing in the opposite direction, so whenever we needed to work something south we used the 3el yagi instead of the top yagi. This was because the tram line was still in the tower and I don’t want to climb the tower in snowy/icy conditions.

Propagations were great, amazing to work 75 dxcc + 23 zones on 15m using the 40m vertical and 10m stack, since no antenna for the band is currently up. However the lowbands really suffered from the solar activity, we didn’t work any zone 4 or zone 5 on 160m for example. No VE worked on 40m and missing zone 4 as well. 20m was of course the money band. We used the 3el yagi @19m and the top antenna in the future 20m stack which is currently located at 55m (6el
yagi).

Most exciting thing in the contest? Having K7RL call in on 160m when the band was pretty much dead outside Europe, how? Aurora opening? Who knows…I first thought that maybe SG3P (SK3W) was kidding with me but the “Thanks for 160m” comment from K7RL on 20m the day after confirmed the QSO.

The multiplier radio consisted of an IC7400 with an old 2x572b amp putting out everything between 200-400W depending on its mood. But this old amp managed to work K7ZV LP on 80m during the afternoon 🙂

Now we will see how much more is done for CQWW CW, if we do M/S or some SB efforts.

Mike (SM2WMV) and Per (SM2LIY)

[Show as slideshow]

I decided to participate in this contest, maybe not my most wise move.
I have run the contest many times before but all bands. This time since
I don't have antennas up for all bands I decided to go single band,
which is something I would not recommend since the activity in the
contest is very limited. Anyway here is the score...

                    Croatian CW Contest

Call: SJ2W
Operator(s): SM2WMV
Station: SM2WMV

Class: SOSB/80 HP
QTH:
Operating Time (hrs): 18

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:
   80:  459    54
   40:
   20:
   15:
   10:
-------------------
Total:  459    54  Total Score = 84,780

Club: 

Comments:

FT-1000D, 4-1000A and 4-SQ