IOTA Contest, 24 - 25 July 2004
HB9CZF - SOAB QRP 24h-CW non-assisted
Rig: K2 with 5W; Ant: 3el Yagi and LW
A quick look at the announced activities showed serveral new (for me) islands and as a additional challenge I tried QRP. HP is too easy, LP is right for international contests and why not QRP in an S&P-Contest. What I didn't know upfront was our sun planned some special effects. Since I have no Packet Radio or Internet in my contest hut I had no idea what was going on. I only witnessed that DX stations were rather weak and Saturday afternoon I had an S5 noise on 20m.
QSO's to remember:
- JA's on 15m were very weak but managed to work JA6LCJ/6.
- ZL6QH was worked on 40m at 16:46z with an S7 signal on my K2. A 100W QSO is never a
problem and after 2 calls my QRP signal was heard on Quarz Hill. 16:46z is 2hours and 14
minutes before my sunset! Never heard them so early. At my sunset ZL6QH was even weaker.
At 22:34 I found them on 20m and surprisingly I could point my beam any direction and the
signalstrength stayed the same. No idea what that was ...
- ZL/G3SQX was finally found on 20m. Ed's signal was much louder on LP and if I remember
correctly ZL1DD's QTH is open towards EU LP and has a small hill direction SP. It's almost
10 years ago when I cycled round Waiheke Island ...
- VY2/W1MO was "only" S9 Saturday afternoon. That's roughly 20dB down compared
to "normal" conditions. North American QSO's on Sunday afternoon were all on
skewed paths and my antenna pointed to South America.
- Sunday morning I was jumping between 10 and 15m and saw how propagations wandered over
Southeastern Europe - spotlight propagation with big signals. I think it was Es again
because I could not hear any Aurora sound at my location.
Was it worth trying QRP? Yes, and the "Search and Pounce Memories" in Writelog helped a lot. I stored the new multiplier and as soon as the signal peaked I started calling again. In 16 hours I worked 20 new IOTA (all in Europe); not included are the islands I'm still waiting for QSL confirmation. I would blame the sun for the low DX-QSO count because I was able to work almost everything I heard.
Claimed Score
BAND QSOs Points Multipliers 80 74 822 34 40 96 1056 46 20 150 1338 59 15 47 525 29 10 13 147 8
380 3888 x 176 = 684'288
Rate Sheet
CW by hour and band
80m 40m 20m 15m 10m Total Cumm OffTime
D1-1200Z - - 17 10 6 33 33 D1-1300Z - - 15 7 - 22 55 D1-1400Z - - 10 7 - 17 72 D1-1500Z - 5 14 5 - 24 96 D1-1600Z ---+- 10 12 5 ---+- 27 123 D1-1700Z - 24 3 - - 27 150 D1-1800Z - 21 6 - - 27 177 D1-1900Z - 16 6 - - 22 199 D1-2000Z 12 8 3 - - 23 222 D1-2100Z 16 - 8 - - 24 246 D1-2200Z 25 - 1 - - 26 272 D1-2300Z 21 10 1 - - 32 304 11 D2-0000Z ---+- ---+- ---+- ---+- ---+- 0 304 60 D2-0100Z - - - - - 0 304 60 D2-0200Z - - - - - 0 304 60 D2-0300Z - - - - - 0 304 60 D2-0400Z - - - - - 0 304 60 D2-0500Z - - - - - 0 304 60 D2-0600Z - - 3 - - 3 307 53 D2-0700Z - - 14 - - 14 321 D2-0800Z ---+- 2 12 ---+- ---+- 14 335 D2-0900Z - - 19 5 2 26 361 D2-1000Z - - 6 8 4 18 379 D2-1100Z - - - - 1 1 380
Total: 74 96 150 47 13
Worked IOTAs
