Mario, S56A's WRTC 2000 Diary

I kept WRTC log of events for 15 days and it was posted several times at the reflector.� If you missed it, here it is:

LPMM S56A

Day 1

�1.� My personnal guest Goran, 4N7RGH, age 18 couldn't get a seat on buss YU-S5.

�2.� ZS6EZ phones from Jo'burg airport about delayed flight and postponed arrival� in LJ.

�3.� VE7SV emails 4 hours delay in Toronto.� S56RSS goes to the airport early :-)

�4.� S57UYX can't arange another pick up but informs us of customs lack of WRTC info.

�5.� S57AW & myself head to Trieste.� Delay at motorway exit, missed right airport exit, no� trace of VE7SV...

�6. We check buss and railway station but no VE7SV.� We enjoyed sandwich lunch and a beer with S57UYX at the border around 18 hours.

�7.� I keep phoning VE7SV at LJ hotel but nobody answers.

�8.� At least LY1DS & LY4AA are here, K1ZZ & KA1ZD are somewhere in 9A.

�Life is beautyfull!

Day 2

I got up early around 7:30 AM and checked for Dale, VE7SV at his hotel.� They said no...� Worked few stations in 2 m contest, took a bath, read a weekend newspaper. Checked for VE7SV again and they said YES!� K3EST calls for 9A1A meeting info.� 9A5W calls Robert, S57AW on the same subject.� Internet/mobile phones comm is� not good as we missed VE7SV 2 hours late arrival.� He called wrong Robert, S53R.

Wakeup call at midday, short trip around downtown Ljubljana, lunch at my home.� Dale must be a good man as my Samoyed dog gives him a lot of kisses on arrival. Sea food salad and pate with a salmon - traditional BC dish!

ZS6EZ, S56M & S57AW arrive from the airport.� VE7SV� IC-756PRO is joined with� ZS6EZ FT-1000MP in my shack.� We go to JN76IA meeting Damjan from S53DZZ club.

His son was born on March 27th, my birthday!� Everybody is delighted with this WRTC location.� S56M must go home to take care of his 3 weeks old second son.�

We check Chris, ZS6EZ at the hotel and take 1 hour walk around the old town.

Later we all go to meet Hrle, 9A6NHH, age 18 arriving by train.� This seems to be quite a tourist attraction for VE & ZS.� We rush home to watch TV EURO-2000 final soccer match.� Hrle calls home at precisely the moment Italians score first goal and his father goes mad :-)� France scores at the last minute and wins the match some 10 minutes later.� Dale & Chris send their emails during the� game.

We move to the kitchen with a variety of meat products, cheese, fresh salads,� fruit and ice-cream.� Deep debate about the airplanes without the pilots from� Canadian Air rep and ZS amateur pilot.� Taxi takes them to the hotel just before� midnight.�

Hrle & me disconnect car battery as my inside lights refuse to switch-off via computer.� 4N7RGH is still in YU.� Not a bad day considering
the start on Saturday...

Day 3 to 8

I finally found some time to write about the WRTC events at Bled.�

On Monday I setup my station for teenage crew 9A6NHH/4N7RGH for S5M operation.�

Preparing the WRTC rules and other Internet published material wasted a lot of paper on my old laser printer due to different
data formats.�

We left for Bled in the afternoon taking VE7SV and ZS6EZ with us.� Org. Committee meeting was at 6 PM and I was amazed to find
large W6 crew already in Bled.�

Welcoming office was open with 4 PC installed and Internet ISDN connection running.� I helped with S5A station bringing 3L6 Yagi and Windom for 10-80m HF bands.� Local YAESU dealer TELESET kindly provided demo FT-847.� PERFTECH supplied additional speakers for SoundBlaster demo of SSB pile-up.�

S57AW was working on the latest release with higher audio levels.� There was a big gathering in the evening with many known friends from all over the
world.� Beer was free!� Lot of people arrived on Wed and were met at the airport by our transportation crews.� Customs didn't pay any attention
to the numerous temporary radio imports.�

Official opening was performed in the evening with most attention paid to the young cheerleader dancers.� S50A and W6OAT spoke on hams behalf.� The ceremony continued in the ice hall with a lot of cold beer (AGAIN).

The real part was starting on Thu afternoon with pile-up competition.� SSB was run first for 3 groups of 20 hams.� CW followed and we repeated
SSB again for a lost Italian competitor and curios onlookers.� Portable computer failed during the last event but we got 105 good data files and
a lot of scribbling anyway.� It was fun to see DL1IAO and DL6RAI reddish from the excitement.�

K4VX/0 with XYL and N0AX were doing a lot of FCC exams in the other room with temperatures reaching almost 100 deg. F.

Disks and CD were handled to K1ZZ for checking with N6AA programs.�

Regular beer cooling session followed.�

N6AA needed external PC modem and I managed to get one which unfortunately did not work.� Teenagers were sent to Ljubljana on S5M, some advice given over the mobile phone, lunch with Niki, VE7NKI, rain, lightning...

We finally reached 12:00 GMT and S50R was trying to work people from S5A.� WB9Z had a good ears, many S5xxX stations also.� Long waiting list
quickly evolved.

I am now going back to the live events.
�
L_ep P_ozdrav� (from) M_ario M_iletic (also 2000 in Roman), S5M

Day 9-16

Saturday evening was pleasantly quiet dinning with 3 XYL with their OM absent :-)� Dave, K1ZZ and Linda, KA1ZD came very late half frozen so we stayed at my hotel.

WX got bad on Sat but CONDX seemed to be fair in S5.� Slow start on SSB but few nice QSO Sun morning on 20m CW including K4XU from Oregon.�

Hats off to YL Emily, S5/P43E who operated for 3 long hours overnight.� It was amusing to listen to people trying to copy S5/P43P and S5/A61AJ on SSB.� I went to the suites with Boris, T93Y, Darko, T95A and his charming YL.�

Occasion was also used to present SCC RTTY award to T93Y.�

I went back to 4 PC with some email WRTC logs already there.� Bruce, N6NT made clean 90 WRTC QSO on 15/20m but EU
�had difficulties with 160 required as 80m band was not used enough.� My OC Tom,� DL7AV arrived and we quickly discussed 50 MHz band and KH7R blessing on my 55th birthday, March 27th.

At 12:00 UTC email pile-up of logs begun at the rate of one per minute.� They went to kkn.net and Larry, N6TW who did strip them to the bare callsigns for� N6AA processing.� Zipped files were copied to the disk and transferred to Dick, N6AA room together� with WRTC competitors disks brought by site referees.� Dave, K1ZZ supervised the� process.�

Competitors were comparing their claimed WRTC scores at K6LA PC.� Everything seemed to run smoothly.� Pile-up scores were already computed but kept secret but I learned that the top SSB numbers were made by non-English� speakers!

On Monday I begun backing up all the data files on my email machine while the others went to the caves & smoked ham tasting.�

The closing ceremony took place at 19:00 MEZ.� K1TO & N5TJ did it again wining CW & pile-up, fast speaker Peter,� ON6TT won SSB QSO trophy, RA3AUU & RV1AC team was second with the best mults achieved by moving Siberian stations, first WRTC winners K1AR & K1DG were
third, young Stefan, DL1IAO close fourth, DL6FBL fifth as S511E.� They later discovered that their last 70 QSO and 10 mults were missing on the full disk in BIN format.� It would make them #3 place.� I rushed with N6AA to publish the preliminary results at the Internet.� UA9BA team was wrongly placed #11 with simple typo error in their pile-up score.

I returned to the Ice Hall and distributed many SCC RTTY awards for hand delivery.

My Sky Contest Club gave nice plaques to all the participants thanks to Rale, YT6A.

It was around 21:00 MEZ and I sat for the first time for a light dinner with DL7AV.� Few photos were taken as my camera was emptied by my young guests 4N7RGH� & 9A6NHH.� I said good-bye to many people and went to bed early in the morning.

Next day was fully dedicated to 5 members of YT6A family with McDonald stop first and zoo second.� I managed to do some homework on Wed but then Chris, ZS6EZ phoned from HA.� He was rejected return entry to S5 with EU visa, 9A should have sent him to the different train station but they throw him out of the country.� We advised him to move closer to S5 border, S57AW helped again with visa, S50S picked him by car and entertain until 13:28 bus departure to Ljubljana.� Chris arrived half hour before Fred, K1VR with XYL came by train.� We all went to the nice restaurant with young Ted, S51TA and Goran, S55OO joining us.� I hope Chris made his way to Bled and ZS.

�I took K1VR family to the Ljubljana tower and later to their old friends from Boston.� We had a lot of drinks and pizza stop was required before driving back to my home.� WX forecast was bad so we decided to go to Trieste and S5 coast.� Ted loaded 6 of us in his van and low flying with over 200 km/h (130 mph) begun.� Short round walk around Trieste included visit to the huge 1910 built synagogue.� We briefly stopped at our S52Z m/m SSB WPX site and went for a seafood lunch at an old town of Piran.

Late return to Ljubljana was just about right time for a bed.� Today we visited Tine, S50A with his huge tower holding 3L 40 and 3L 80m Yagis.� C31XR is on another, 5L20 on 3rd, WRTC tribander temporary on fourth.� Sumptuous lunch was around 15:00 MEZ with S57HCY arriving on spot at 17:00.� Fred & Betty left for Vienna and WRTC almost ended for me.� K1VR is JD from Harvard and I consulted him in the unfortunate case of S511E lost data.� Together with Tine, S50A we agreed that contest committee should solve the final scores making the least suffering for everybody involved.

My WRTC involvement begun at Dayton in 1988 when Danny, K7SS consulted me about it but I hope it is not finished yet.� I missed talking to many of my good old friends due to my data processing obligations but I am glad everybody enjoyed WRTC in S5.

73 de Mario, S56A, N1YU

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