The Trip
After years of business travel in all types of domestic and foreign
conditions, I deserved one like this! I had originally planned to visit
our parent company in Israel and do the CQ WW CW from there. At the end
of October, my boss informed me that our Brazilian distributor was
holding a conference Nov 25-27 at a resort hotel on the coast. He felt
bad that he was asking me to be gone over Thanksgiving... but I knew I
already had my wife's clearance for the Israel trip!
I immediately thought of CQ WW CW and hit the e-mail to track down a
station. Oms, PY5EG, gave an immediate invitation and I accepted it. I
really wanted to do single op all band, but Oms had already promised the
station to Marcelo, PY1KN. Jim, N5FA, was very helpful in making phone
calls and giving me some background info. He recommended that I do 10
meters single band as there was a real chance to claim the world record.
I flew from Boston to Rio de Janeiro on Monday night Nov 23. Plane
was almost empty - everyone on board got their own row for sleeping!
Most of my flying is East-West so it was a pleasant surprise to get off
of a 10 hour flight and not be jet lagged out (Rio is only 3 hours ahead
of Boston).
Spent Tuesday afternoon walking around Copacabana beach. Nicest beach
I have ever seen and it is right in the middle of a huge city. PY1KN
lives in Rio and we met for dinner. It gave us a chance to get better
acquainted. Marcelo is an avid CW operator and contester who normally
operates low power. 15m is his favorite band so we had no trouble
deciding who got what band.
Wednesday I took a bus to the resort hotel where the meeting was. All
of the first day was in Portuguese, so I went horse back riding instead.
Thursday (Thanksgiving day) I went sailing in the morning. Then sat on
the beach and enjoyed a book all afternoon. My two presentations were in
the evening and went without a hitch. The dinner buffet even included
turkey!
Friday morning I went sailing again. Wind was fairly quiet so it was
very peaceful drifting around the bay looking for breeze. I know that I
have NEVER been this relaxed and rested before doing a major contest.
It was 3 hours back to the airport in Rio where I met Marcelo at the
airport. We flew together on the one hour flight to Curitiba where PY5EG
is located. Curitiba has a beautiful new airport and Oms had someone
waiting to drive us over to his station which only takes about 20
minutes. We arrived there about 7:30PM local time, with the contest
starting at 10PM.
Setting Up
Arriving at PY5EG is quite impressive. You don't see any antennas on
the way. You drive under huge electric transmission lines and wonder how
you are ever going to hear anything through the line noise. About a half
mile up the drive way you arrive in a clearing with five towers. Each
tower supports big big antennas that are perfectly straight. You
immediately recognize that this is a well engineered place.
The PY5EG "shack" is a large cabana located next to the
swimming pool. It is a 10m by 8m room with the radios in one corner.
There is a pool table in the middle of the room (when rates get
slow?...) and a fire place in one corner.
There were two FT-1000 radios with amplifiers set up and ready to go.
Each had Top Ten band decoders. Either station was wired to get to any
of the monobanders outside. Any category would have been easy for us to
do.
The computers had Windows 98 installed and a batch file to start CT
as a full size DOS window. CT was version 9.10A with an old country
file. In the rush to leave home I had forgotten to bring new CTY and
Master.DTA files.
We had just under two hours to get ready. Oms was away on business
and was expected to arrive soon after the contest started. I listened to
10m and it sounded really strange. Signals were weak and fluttery from
the US. I thought it was going to be a long weekend.
N5FA had warned me that I might want to bring a keyer if I had any
special requirements. I didn't want to carry the extra weight and
figured I would just wing it. The radio had a Bencher paddle wired up to
the internal keyer and a W1WEF keying interface, but you couldn't use
them together. I had brought some cables for getting from the computer
to the radio so it didn't take long to get where the computer could send
CW. But now I needed a keyer.
PY5CC showed up to help us get set up and pulled a Morsematic MM-3
out of a closet. The setup was kind of funny so I pressed the overall
reset command. Only to discover that the keyer paddles were now wired
backward! No manual in sight. I recalled that this keyer had a way to
reverse the paddles through the keypad, but couldn't figure out the
command. Contest starts in 45 minutes!
Above my head on a shelf were 7 rotator control boxes. Two were
marked for 20 and one for 40. That left Marcelo and I trying to figure
out which pair was which for the 10 and 15 stacks. I went outside,
looked up at a pair of 8 over 8, and just "assumed" that had
to the be the 10m stack. I figured out which box turned them and was
ready to go.
With 10 minutes to go, N5FA calls on the phone to see if everything
is OK. I tell him about the MM-3 paddle problem and he says, "I
have a manual for one of those around here." Wow, probably the only
guy in the world that can help and he calls me! Command was something
like *7612. I would have never guessed it. I couldn't figure out how to
program a message into the keyer, but decided I could just use the
computer.
Marcelo set up on the second station which was about 10 feet away. He
would have to get up to reach the rotator controls. We were facing away
from each other so there wasn't much visual interaction between us as we
were operating. It really was two completely independent single band
efforts. We probably shared about 10 sentences all weekend.
The Contest
Finally
ready to go just as the clock ticked 23:59. That gave me one minute to
find a frequency and start CQing. The run was immediate even though
signals were very fluttery. The USA East Cost was very weak. Had a few
Caribbean stations call in that I never heard again - V47KP and FG5EY.
Very quickly the band started to go to JA. 9M2TO called in for another
good mult. Near the end of the first hour, RU0LL, DU3NXE, ZM2K, and
BV4QW were some nice surprises.
Stateside was gone after the first hour and it was mostly JAs on the
band. JA is almost at the antipode from PY5EG and N5FA had warned me
that they would come in all night. I took a spin across the band and
worked XX9X who had a good signal and XU2A.
Around 02Z, the band went even deeper and I worked 3W5FM, HS0AC, and
a weak AT2UR. Worked about 15 BV and BY stations which is more than I
even knew existed. They had great signals!
At 03Z I snagged 8Q7DV. A few minutes later A61AJ came in. In between
all of this DX were more JAs. It seemed that if I called CQ they could
work me. But with all the flutter, if I called them they could not get
the call correct. 7W5B is not right! Only 16 QSOs this hour but they
were interesting ones. A small JA run erupted in the 04Z hour. I would
tune around occasionally and it was wild to hear an almost quiet band
with things like XZ1N and A45XR coming in. XZ1N always had a huge
pile-up every time I heard him.
During the 05Z hour, it seemed like the band was almost dead. I
decided to visit some of the other bands to see what they sound like.
YCCC was really pushing to make a big club score and I figured I could
build up a few extra points for the club. I went to 40m from 0534-0601Z
and worked 51Q/12Z/15C. The band was packed and it was a real battle to
dig out calls compared to 10m. Decided that I better save my energy.
Back to 10m where I found CP6UH for a multiplier at 0612Z (that's
0412 local time!). Not much else around so I listened down on 80m and
realized why SOAB is difficult from deep South America. It was noisy and
signals were weak. It would have been a real struggle to make much of a
low band multiplier.
After a short break, I was back on 10m during the 07Z hour. Found
JT1A with a big signal. Started a great run of Europeans about 0730Z. At
the time, I thought they were coming in from the Northeast on direct
path. Rates were really good in the 08Z and 09Z hours. Local sunrise was
about 0750Z.
At 10Z it was like someone threw a switch. I couldn't get any answers
so had to do some S&P. The OH gang was booming in, but not much
else. Worked OH0RJ for a good one. I really thought we had experienced a
SID event and had no idea what to expect. At this point I felt any
chance at a record was slipping away. The 11Z and 12Z hours were in the
50's. It was obvious that the path from the USA to Europe was great!
Tuning around I was lucky to find TA2IJ for a new one.
About 1245Z the band started to recover and I could get a run going
into Europe again. 9G1TB and HZ1HZ called in. Plus 4K7Z, TZ6DX, GD4UOL,
and 5H3US (my only zone 37) during the 14Z hour.
Things slowed down during the 15Z hour so I took the opportunity to
run up the band looking for multipliers. 3V8BB and CN8WW were easy. Back
to running Europe during the last half of 15Z and all of 16Z. GM0TTY
gave me Shetlands. ZB2EO caught my attention in the pile-up for another
good one.
The first USA stations started to come through about 1645Z. I kept
the antennas on Europe figuring I would have plenty of time for USA
later. 17Z was a mix of Europe and NA. With Europe going out, I took
from 1745Z to 1800Z to scan for multipliers. I was rewarded with ZP9X,
EA9EA, HI8/DL1HCM, and P40W. The Caribbean guys were weak all day and
there were many of them that I called that I just could not break
through the big NA pile-ups.
18Z and 19Z are when the real fun began. Having 199 and 192 hours
back to back was a thrill. No question that the USA ops are the easiest
to run in the world. They send things only once, they are loud, and they
are fast. 5N3CPR and VP5M each called in to give me new ones. At 1911Z
VE2/N6ZZ helped me out with zone 2. That was a relief. At 1941Z KL1R
gave me zone 1.
The 20Z and 21Z hours continued to be big. I had Geoclock running on
my laptop and could almost watch the band close as darkness moved across
the USA. JJ1DJW became the first JA of the evening at 2133Z. The next
hour was a mix of JA and USA signals - all about the same strength.
The 23Z hour was mostly USA West Coast plus JAs. V29QQ gave me a very
good multiplier.
Somewhere during the 23Z hour, Oms walked into the shack and noticed
that Marcelo was turning the "wrong" rotator. I could have
died - we had just worked the first 23+ hours with me turning the 15m
rotator and Marcelo turning the 10m rotator. What a low point. I think
it was just coincidence, but immediately upon recognizing the problem
the JA signals came up and a nice run started!
I felt really bad for Marcelo. Since he had to get up to turn the
rotators, he usually pointed them at Europe and NA and left them. Since
I was sitting right next to them, I would often turn the high beam in
some unusual direction just to see what might be out there. When you are
dealing with such big antennas, the wrong direction is like putting the
lights out! What was amazing to me is that I had not missed a multiplier
that I had heard up to that point.
Side note: I knew my competition during the contest was LU5CW at
LT1F. We did not compare any scores until the end of the contest, but I
was worried that I had lost at this point. It took all my concentration
to keep pushing. I actually tried to use it to my advantage as a
motivator. At the end of 24 hours, LT1F was 289 QSOs ahead of me. I am
very happy I did not know this!
Day 2
At the half way point I had 2208/35/125. The record required
something like 3750 QSOs and I didn't see any way this could be reached.
Since I usually do all band where there are lots of multipliers, it was
agony to realize that in a single band effort, each QSO was only worth
about 480 points. Nothing to do but keep running and looking for
countries.
The 00Z and 01Z hour were mostly JA with a few West Coast and some
Pacific. I got YB5QZ at 0148Z. I took 30 minutes out during the 02Z hour
to go take a shower. This is midnight local time and I was still
surprisingly awake. I figured I would catch a few hours of sleep after
the shower.
Back on at 0245Z with big signals from 9M6NA, B7K and BD4EG. Just
wild to hear all the loud Asians in the middle of the night. The next
two hours were slow, but JAs kept calling so I postponed going to sleep.
Worked N5XT at 0446Z so you never know when the band will be open to
where. Now that I knew where the antennas were really pointing I could
get a better idea of where the openings were actually coming from.
During the 05Z hour the band began to open to the middle of Asia.
Mixed in with the JAs were EX8MZ, AT2PTT, and UK8OM. Then it went deeper
into European Russia about 0530Z. I finally figured out that this
opening was via the long path beaming over the South Pole. The next two
hours were good rate and had a very interesting sound to them. The log
is almost all zone 16 and 17 with a few JAs mixed in.
At 0900Z it stopped. Instantly the band just went away to Europe.
Signals from zone 26 were still booming in, but not much QSO volume
there. I took a quick spin up the band and caught 3A/N9NC just before he
faded out. Heard VQ9IO but could not figure out what path he was coming
in on. He was the same strength in almost every direction! This was the
only multiplier I heard and could not work all weekend -- and it would
have been a double.
About 0915Z I decided there was little I could do except put the CQ
repeat function on and wait for the band to recover. Must have dozed off
because 20 minutes later I wake up to find Z31RB calling me. NH0E is my
only QSO for the next 30 minutes. For those scoring at home, that is a 6
hour during 09Z!
Things finally return about 1030Z and I get a run started to Europe.
The 11Z and 12Z hours are great and give me some hope that I can still
catch the record. UA2AW and OY1CT give me a lift.
At 13Z things die again. Probably the result of the USA to Europe
opening. I tune around and work D44BC and the loud Europeans who are
CQing. Decide to do a serious multiplier sweep and start at 28000 and go
up. 6V6U, 3DA0CA, TU2MA, and JY9QJ are the reward. Again there are a lot
of Caribbean guys that I can't break through. I know there are 10 easy
multipliers that I am missing. Work my last QSO up on 28160.
Probably wasted some good rate time because had no trouble getting a
run going at 14Z. Worked Europe the next few hours. SP1NY/MM gave me
zone 40. As loud as the OH's were all day, I was surprised it took so
long.
Took another multiplier sweep at 16Z and got 4U1VIC with a nice
signal, JX7DFA who was working split, and ZF1A. That took 10 minutes and
I was back to running.
The 17Z hour was a mix of Europe and USA. I was prepared to just run
out the contest since my math indicated that QSOs were the only hope of
getting to the record. With 6 hours to go, I had 3494/36/141. Still
needed about 350 QSOs for the record so I was hoping for some good USA
runs like the day before.
At 1803Z I just about fell out of the chair when a very loud 5A1A
called and gave me a double mult. I quickly switched the antennas to
make sure he was coming from the correct direction. He had the right
sound. Wow, never expected that. Ten minutes later GJ3YHU hands me
another surprise. At 1830Z I decide to search for Caribbean stations
again. Work P40E, 8P9Z (beautiful job of digging me out on a tail end),
and HK6KKK. I heard TF3DX calling the HK6 in the pile-up. So as soon as
I worked KKK, I moved up half a KHz and called the TF3. TF3DX came right
back. You have to love it!
Decide I better get back to CQing and am astounded when OX3SA answers
my first press of F1. Four new countries in 10 minutes.
The next several hours aren't fast but they pull me closer to my
goal. It is almost all North America stations in the log. At one point,
I can actually watch my appearance on packet as it moves around the
country. First there was a little burst of W8's, then some W9's, then
some W3's, and finally up to W1. Really cool to hear.
Band almost dies about 22Z. Ernesto at LT1F stops by to ask how I am
doing. I tell him 2 Meg. He tells me he has 1.9M. Because of the low
points for each QSO, I figure this puts me about 200 QSOs ahead of him
with 2 hours to go.
Band doesn't seem to be quite as good to JA as it was on Saturday.
First one in the log is JO1VRL at 2218Z. I am getting anxious and bored
and get the crazy idea that I would like to get one big rate hour on 20m
before the contest is done. I toy with this thought for awhile, and then
at 2253Z make the decision to go for it. From 2254Z to 2311Z I work
52Q/8Z/9C on 20m. It wasn't as much fun as I expected and I started
feeling guilty that I might loose the contest while I was playing.
Made 51 QSOs on 10m in the last 45 minutes of the contest, mostly JAs,
and realized that I should have never left. Lesson learned!
Finished with 3869/37/148 for 2,121,395 points. Breaks the 1990 world
record of 1,890,607 set by CX0CW (op CX8BBH). The high country count was
the difference for both the record and beating LT1F.
Notes
