Ohio QSO Party
Call: DL2HBX
Operator(s): DL2HBX
Station: DF9LJ
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: DX
Operating Time (hrs): 12
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs
--------------------
80: 7 0
40: 61 1
20: 93 24
15:
10:
--------------------
Total: 161 25 CW Mults = 74 Ph Mults = 22 Total Score = 33,312
Club: Bavarian Contest Club
Comments:
Ten-Tec Orion II + Alpha
Optibeam 17-4@17m, 80m dipole
Guten Tag from the other side of the pond!
It was a short-term decision to participate in the 2010 Ohio QSO party. I had
toyed with the idea last year already but couldnâ??t make it then because we
had just relocated from MI to DL. This year, QRL obligations almost stopped me
again. So I asked Jörg, DF9LJ, on Friday afternoon if I could operate from his
fine station and he invited me to come over. It was a bitter-sweet event, as
Jörg had learned the day before that he will have to dismantle the antenna
soon due to his neighbors who sued him.
I arrived 30 minutes before the contest and we struggled to set up WinTest. The
closest we found was the Texas QSO Party which allows to enter counties but no
serial numbers. I ended up entering QSOs into the computer and keeping a paper
log in parallel in order to keep track of the serial numbers. Also, we did not
set up the keyer interface, so that all keying was done manually.
The Omni was a new experience as well and for the most part I figured out how
to use it. The receiverâ??s filter capabilities really helped to pull out many
of the weak signals. One issue was the sidetone where I couldn't find how to
increase the volume. I apologize for quite some QSD â?? the low sidetone, an
unfamiliar key (ETM-9) and the fast QSK (giving some echo at times) added to my
lack of training.
DF9LJâ??s station is optimized for CW. The Alpha worked well on 20CW+SSB and on
40CW / 80CW. The antennaâ??s SWR was too high on 40 Phone, and trying to make
QSOs barefoot was a frustrating experience. The 80m dipole is no DX antenna but
it was good enough for seven QSOs on CW towards the end of the contest.
The money band was 20m which stayed open until after 00z (2am local time). I
did listen twice on 15m but never heard anyone. 40m was difficult early on due
to tons of RTTY and digital stations above 7.035. Later in the night, their
activity subsided so that the band became quite clear too. OQP Activity was
good with hourly QSO rates between 13 (17z, 18z) and 21 (00z). Only in the last
hour, things slowed down when everyone seemed to have QSYâ??ed to 80/75.
Calling CQ on several occasions yielded just three QSOs plus two non-OH
contacts. 19 out of my 25 SSB QSOs were requests to QSY from CW to SSB. In most
cases, this worked well and I appreciate all the moves which got me 17
additional multipliers.
The mobile stations made for an interesting contest. 95 out of the 186 QSOs
were with stations that operated from more than one county. Here is my
leaderboard:
W9MSE â?? 19
W8O â?? 15
K8MR â?? 12
W1NN â?? 9
K8DD â?? 9
W8TK â?? 7
NX2PX â?? 6
K8RYU â?? 5
WB8JUI â?? 5
AE8M â?? 4
N8SS â?? 3
N9FN â?? 1
Out of the 88 counties, I contacted 76, two of them on Phone only.
The claimed score is well above the old DX record. Now, let's see how the
others did, in particular Dietmar, DL3DXX, who was gave out serial numbers that
were always very close.
73! Uli, DL2HBX (KK8I)
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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