| 2nd time after 2002 to join this contest and had
great fun again.
We started on Friday installing all antennas in fieldday style
enjoying excellent spring weather. First on the list was a 4square
for 40m designed by Hermann, HB9CRV, which was very helpful
especially RX-wise. This antenna was made of 12m long fiberglas
poles.
This antenna was followed by the multiplier antennas:
trap dipoles for 160-40m and 20-10m installed on a military-like
guyed tower.
Top on the list was a 3ele SteppIR Yagi attached to a 24m high
full automatic crank up tower mounted on a car trailer. You have
to see this one to believe...
Inspired from our 2002 success as HB9A we tried the mixed category
this time and were not disappointed despite the rather bad band
conditions. No stateside on 15m! On 10m we managed to work 3
countries: HB9, DL and... VK6. On a absolute empty 10m band I
heard VK6YS and was lucky to get 001 from him!
Most productive bands were 20 and of course 40m. In the evening on
40m SSB the 4-square helped a lot while listening to the pile-up
on the always crowded band.
During the night (I was lucky to get the night shift, hi) 40m/CW
was the best choice working a couple of stateside stations. SSB
was useless during the night. I tried 40/SSB a few times, but the
folks working the columbian contest taking place at the same time
didn`t answer my calls...
Also 80/SSB didn`t work, so I had to stick to CW.
Moreover all single OPs seem to take their rest period during the
night.
On saturday afternoon it started to rain and didn`t stop until all
antennas were down again. Another example for the fieldday rule
#1: "all antennas have to be washed during
fielddays"
Thanks Phil/HB9FMU and Hermann/HB9CRV for perfect organisation and
nice team and our hosts for the super accomodation.
See you again in H26-Contest!
Some statistics:
HB9FMU rate sheet
HB9FMU continents
|
