After 3 years of hard work on our towers and antenna systems it was finally time to upgrade our hamshack . It has undergone major improvements and was almost fully automatised. Thanks to the band decoders and antenna switches from the company MicroHam and other switching systems from OM2KW our work during the contest became efficient and fast. Jumping from one band to another took only seconds. The whole network of cables and relays and also our amplifiers OM Power 2500 worked 100% during the whole contest . Wolfgang OE3WLB helped as to reduce interstation interference as he prepared a lot of band pass filters. As usually we used the contest software from N1MM. The whole system worked 100% without a single fallout during 48 hours, although a small upgrade of our computers was neccesary. Thanks for this FB software.
Despite the powerful technical improvements of our station we didn’t reach our goal. The ionosphere didn´t enable us to reach higher rates to DX areas on the second day. Even though, the total score, the QSO number and multiplier total is higher than last year.
The condx on Saturday were very good and we hopede that we could reach 7000 QSOs at the end of the contest. After the first half of the contest we had 3700 QSOs in our log. It filled us with optimism but on Sunday the condx deteriorated and the 15m band (where we hoped to reach great score) closed up totally.
On Saturday we made about 1100 QSOs on 15m, on Sunday only around 50. On Sunday 15m didn’t open up at all towards Japan and in the afternoon it was also closed towards North America. We spent the morning on 10m, where some EU shortskips appeared, and we made around 150 QSOs..
The main band was 20m, where we worked predominantly Europeans, so the average points for connection have been rapidly decreasing under 2. Sunday evening we were desperately seeking for opportunities and so we ended up switching between lower bands. Therefore, points weren’t coming as we were used to from previous years.
We can say, that the DX conditions were the worst what we experienced so far, at least in Central Europe.
Despite these hostile conditions we are satisfied with the results. We thank everybody who called us and we are looking forward to hear everyone CW part under better conditions again.
We would also like to congratulate team 9A1P for their achieved results.
CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB
Call: OM8A
Operator(s): OM2KW,2VL,OM3BH,3GI,3LA,3NA,3RM,OM5KM,OM7JG
Station: OM8A
Class: M/S HP
QTH: Okoc
Operating Time (hrs): 48
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
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160: 377 13 65
80: 423 23 94
40: 1319 34 124
20: 2306 39 161
15: 1199 38 154
10: 284 23 105
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Total: 5908 170 703 Total Score = 10,234,179
OM2KW switching system
MicroHam antenna switch 10/2
OM Power amplifier OM2500 HF