IOTA Contest, 30 - 31 July 2005
HB9CZF - SOAB QRP 24h-CW non-assisted
Rig: K2 with 5W; Ant: 3el SteppIR and LW
My plan was to follow the same strategy as last year: QRP. New was the contest software called Win-Test which ran without any major issues.
Conds on the bands were above average and Sporadic E brought many IOTA's from Europe into my log very easily. I was surprised how many huge signals there were on 10, 15 and 20m. As a HB station the only way to be successful in IOTA contest is to S&P the entire 24 hours. An additional challenge for QRP would be my "weak" signal but as soon as a "un-workable" station was heard and put into the bandmap I could revisit him again and hopefully the Sporadic-E-cloud would position himself in favour of me :-)
80m on the other hand was a nightmare. Contstand S7..S9 QRN all night but here I had a slight advantage. HB being in the middle of Europe was close enough to work "many" IOTA's not to far away.
During the night I offered myself 4 hours of sleep and Sunday moring I caught 2 US stations on 40m while the band was closing. Good ears K3EST and KU8E.
In Asia I noticed high activity from YB and a few JA. ZL6QH was only worked on 40m (S9) but not found on any other bands (no DX-Cluster used over here). ZL1TM was heard S&P on 20m. No VK at all!
Africa was quiet as well. Only IH9 and 3V8SM (a new one for me). The same for SA. YV7QP was the only station heard. It seems that this contest attracts "only" European stations - see statistics at the very bottom.
Compared to last year I reached the same score just before I went to bed (sleeping bag) and I called it a day when I hit the 1 Mio barrier.
Claimed Score
BAND QSO DUP IOTA POINTS AVG
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80 48 0 28 588 12.25
40 123 1 48 1257 10.22
20 190 1 62 1734 9.13
15 114 0 40 1086 9.53
10 64 0 19 540 8.44
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TOTAL 539 2 197 5205 9.66
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TOTAL SCORE : 1 025 385
Rate Sheet
Worked IOTAs
