Helvetia Contest, 29.-30. April 2006
HB9CZF - SOAB CW
Antenna-setup for 2006 was excatly the same as for the previous year. I installed my 20m loop which was my 2nd antenna for 10, 15 and 20m. For the low bands the 2x 41m doublet was strung between the mast and two apple trees on either side. The angle between the legs was roughly 135 degrees compared to 90 degrees from last year. The values on the BT1500 balanced tuner were almost the same as last year and easy to reproduce. The SteppIR was often used in bi-directional mode. Especially on 10m to work HB and Saturday evening to get hold of Asia as well as North America at the same time.
At my QTH the waether was mostly overcast and dry. Much better than the guys in the Eastern part of Switzerland where they experienced snow!
Inside the shack: TneTec Omni VI+ as TRX A and K2/100 as TRX B. TL-922 PA (to the left of this picture) was wired to the Omni VI+. In the background six W3NQN bandpassfilters can be seen. On the software side I was using Win-Test and EZMaster. Unfortunately I found two software bugs which prohobited easy going. With advanded SO2R and the "heavy Pile-Up" scenarios whenever I hit ESC to concentrate on a weak signal somehow the audio was stuck to the wrong TRX. I had to define a F-key with a " " which brought the audio back in order. The other bug was about the 2nd footswitch which wasn't working at all and therefore I had to use Shift-key-binds-to-second-radio. Apart from that Win-Test worked like a star and the object files told me how I'm doing compared to 2005.
Conds were as expected and we are approaching the bottom of the suncycle. 10m was groundwave DX only but I even managed a QSO with HA. 15m was very VHF-like going. Only stations with high masts or sloping terain had a chance. I never worked so many weak JA's on Sunday moning. 20m was ok but the European shortskip was missing. 40m was probably the best band: I was called by VK2AEA and Frank, ZL4BR at 5pm which is 90 minutes before my local sunset. Since I'm adjudication the Helvetia Contest I have access to Frank's log and he had to wait 45 minuntes to work his 2nd HB9 station. I assume my 41m LW is working not badly.
Compared to 2005 I manaded almost the same number of QSO but fell 10% short in points. This due to the missing dual-CQ I planned to run Saturday evening direction NA on 20m and Sunday moring between 15 and 20/40m. I guess the software bug in Win-Test is fixed by now but I haven't doublechecked.
Claimed Score
Rate Sheet
Worked Cantons
Nothing heard
from ZG.