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© 2010 Arctic Diamonds - TF4M
CQ 160 Contest – TF4X #2 in Europe, #6 World !
Yuri, K3BU operated TF4X in the CQ WW 160 meter contest in the Single Operator High Power category.
A solar flare about a week before the contest started caused worry that conditions would be poor. The band seemed to have recovered nicely, but the Aurora Index stayed high during most of the contest and it became clear that conditions were disturbed.
Iceland is greatly affected by any Auroral disturbance, much more so than neighboring countries and Yuri observed, for example, that my Great Beverage antennas showed almost no directivity during the contest. I know for a fact that they work very well, but during the weekend it seemed that signals appeared to come from all directions simultaneously. I understand this may be due to a high arrival angle during disturbed conditions.
Some juicy DX was worked, two KH6 stations for example, it is only recently that the historic first QSO with KH6 was made from my station – this is quite remarkable considering the disturbed conditions.
The raw score is as follows:
1643 QSOs
51 States/Provinces
80 Countries
Total Score = 1,317,729
At present TF4X has the second highest reported score in Europe and is #6 worldwide. This may of course change as and/or when other stations report their scores, but it is incredibly satisfying to see all my hard work being justified with such superior results.
It was quite illuminating to observe such an experienced operator running my station – at times I feared that my amplifier would literally melt, but it performed to my full satisfaction and there were no equipment/antenna issues whatsoever during the contest.
Yuri wrote in his comment to the 3830 Reflector:
Last minute adventure to the Aurora zone, taking up Thor’s invite.
Being rusty from dormant period, problems with equipment setup,
drivers, but got ready for the start.
Stories about Aurora wipeouts made it a big if.
Thanks to Thor and his magnificent station it ended up being fun and decent
score, even if coming short of beating the Eu record.
The background noise is probably the lowest in the world allowing to
hear lot more of the juicy stuff than working it.
Thanks for wonderful hospitality and station from Thor, TF4M and all the QSOs
and points. Lot of dirty clixing signals and rude behaviour by “CQ pirates”.
Will have more later.
Yuri, TF/K3BU
I used my PERSEUS SDR receiver to record the entire contest 1800-1900kHz. The recording obviously contains the entire contest effort of TF4X and in addition it contains the contest effort of everyone else heard at my location.
This consumes two hundred GB of data, please contact me if you are interested in specific time periods.
A new chapter in the History of Amateur Radio has been written.
Siggi, TF3CW was going to activate TF4X in the CQ WW 160 meter contest, but unforeseen circumstances caused him to cancel.
Yuri, K3BU, has stepped in and will operate the station in the Single Operator High Power category.
I sincerely hope that there will be no sun spots and no Aurora.
This may be the last chance in our life time to enjoy these fantastic conditions on Top Band.
I also hope the activity will reflect this – it would be so very cool if Yuri was able to work All 40 Zones in the contest !
It is interesting to note that I have followed the Tesla Radio Club project for years and several times I have been on the verge of writing to Yuri to invite him to my station !
I operated for 14 hours in the Stew Perry Distance Challenge and made around 400 contacts.
Conditions were poor with some Auroral activity. Despite the poor conditions, I made a few juicy DX contacts, notably CE1/K7CA for a new country and Zone 12, VK6DXI for the longest distance worked – 15.800km, and KH6LC in Hawaii.
Several QSOs were made with Japan, but the US was noticeably absent. Only a handful of US stations were worked, despite conditions allowing contacts to be made to the West Coast.
All QSOs may be listened to on the Online Audio page.
I observe with dismay, the low quality signals that descend on 160 meters during contest weekends. Key Clicks are rampant and several stations made it hard to operate near them due to their dirty transmitters.
Generally it is a pleasure to operate on 160 meters and I may have to reconsider my contest participation, as this is simply not enjoyable.
I am using a Yaesu FT1000MP MK V with key click modifications in place and the radio is fitted with an INRAD roofing filter and a 200Hz CW filter in the 455kHz IF cascaded with the stock 250 Hz filter in the 8MHz IF.
I receive with an array of 8 Beverage antennas, coupled through a K9AY preamplifier with excellent overload characteristics.
I used a very nice feature of the Win-Test contest logging software that is called Targets Tracking which enables real time comparison of last years rates compared with the current rates on an hourly basis.
