Currently viewing the tag: "contesting"

The call series TFxY, TFxX and TFxZ are presently reserved for Contest operations and special occasions.

TF4Y was issued for the first time to me for a limited period only to be used during the Russian DX Contest by a team of Russian operators.

This call sign may be re-issued at any time.

The team members, Alex-RA3MR, Elena-RV3ACA, Valery-RZ6AU, Artem-RD3MA, Sergey, OH2DZ (UA1ANA) and Dmitry-RA3MF operated my station during the contest to the tune of 1800 QSOs and a score of approximately 3,000,000 points.

In addition the team operated before and after the contest as homecall/TF and activated the Yaroslavl Club Station RK3MWL/TF as well.

Alex, RA3MR operated from my QTH for the second time – see the R7C/TF operation – and he generously donated two beautiful 19 inch LCD monitors to my station.

The group arrived at my QTH on March 13th and immediately started building and assembling antennas – a SpiderBeam, Delta loop and an Inverted Vee antenna to be used for multiplier hunting.

The SpiderBeam had some problems and was only operational two hours before the start of the contest.

We discovered that it was possible to run two stations on each band without any interference at all, due to the 500 meter separation between the USA transmitting antenna site and the JA/EU transmitting site.

No issues or problems arose during the contest and all equipment and antennas functioned flawlessly.

Some photos of their visit may be found in my gallery .

The QSL manager for this operation is Elena, RV3ACA.

It was a pleasure to welcome these experienced Radio maniacs to my station and to see them in action and I hope they will be happy with their visit to Iceland.

On their return to Russia – Artem, RD3MA and Dmitry, RA3MF were interviewed by Yaroslavl Region TV.

open source video, online video platform, video streaming, video solutions open source video, online video platform, video streaming, video solutions

CALL: TF4M

230 QSOs. 1214 QSO points
x 50 Multipliers
= 60700 Claimed score
My first time in the contest and a great learning experience.

Many fine signals on the band, but I had great trouble being heard even by the
strongest stations.

I heard many JA stations, but they never heard me calling.

K1TTT picked me up on the first call though, he must have a beverage pointed to
TF!

It is painfully clear that my reception far outperforms my tx signal.

I plan to build new TX antennas closer to the sea. My tx antenna is 500 meters
inland situated in a valley so it is shielded by mountains in several
directions.

I have a very quiet location and I can hear extremely weak signals with perfect
copy even though they are not workable.

Sunday had a massive storm and my open wire feeders kept shorting out so did
not get back on until late afternoon again.

TX: FT1000mp MkV + Emtron DX-3 at 1KW, YCCC Double L fed with 800 meters (2,400
feet) of open wire feeders.

RX: reversible Beverage to JA , ‘dipole’ with 100meter legs lying on the
ground.

I decided to get on the air day before the contest in the hope that increased activity might result.  I easily made more than 100 QSOs in about two hours, and at times the band sounded like 20 meters. I heard stations all over the US and a couple of stations in JA and one HL3 with reasonable signals.

When the contest started I had high hopes of a good score, but 2 hours into the contest with only a single contact – TF3KX I realized that this wasn´t going to happen.

At 2330 I was up to around 140 QSOs and was bored stiff with the lack of activity.  I could hear signals everywhere, mostly weak almost none of them lifting the S meter, and it was tough to make myself heard when I called them.

I started again 0930 on Sunday morning and made only 24 QSOs more until the end of the contest at 1500.

My furthest QSO was with NP4A – 6,000km, I heard N6RO with a 519 signal and I spent an hour calling JA3YBK who did not hear me or GM4POI and a few OH stations who were also calling him.

I believe that a TF to JA QSO has never taken place yet, so this was quite exciting.

My strategy of getting on the day before the contest in the hope that those stations and their friends would show up in the contest failed miserably.

After the contest finished, I continued on 160M in the hopes of snagging a JA, I easily made another 100 QSOs all over Europe, again none of those made any effort while the contest was on.

Final score:  164 QSOs 987 points

Lesson learned :  My antennas are too small.  I will be back.

text in icelandic:

Ég hef eytt mörgum vikum, blóði og svita á tveggja ára tímabili til að koma upp almennilegu sendiloftneti fyrir 160M og tókst það að lokum degi fyrir CQ WW DX keppnina í nóvember.  Slysið sem ég varð fyrir tafði einnig  framkvæmdina.  Enn er eftir nokkur vinna við að ganga frá loftnetinu betur en það er YCCC Double L loftnet

sjá:  http://www.yccc.org/Articles/double_l.htm

með efsta part í 24 metra hæð, loftnetið er fætt með opinni fæðilínu sem er ca 800 metra löng með 12:1 balun spennum á báðum endum.  Ég notaði loftnetið bæði til sendingar og móttöku enda mjög lítið suð hér í Otradal.  Mig grunar að staðsetning loftnetsins sé misráðin hjá mér, fjöllin skyggja á stóran hluta sjóndeildarhringsins og því verði ég að koma 160M loftneti niður að sjó.

Rétt fyrir Stew Perry keppnina datt mér í hug að prófa loftnetið og etv auka við virknina í keppninni hugsaði sem svo að ef menn vissu að TF yrði í loftinu í keppninni myndu þeir eða félagar þeirra kalla í mig í keppninni.

Ég hafði auðveldlega rúmlega 100 QSO á stuttum tíma og var því vongóður um árangur í keppninni.

Heyrði m.a. í HL3 og JA um kvöldið með þokkalegum merkjum.

Fyrsta QSO í keppninni var við TF3KX sem kallaði í mig eftir næstum tveggja tíma árangurslaus CQ.

Þrátt fyrir að hafa ekki heyrt tíst fram að þessu, með viðtækið skrúfað í botn, þá kom það í tvígang fyrir að mjög sterk merki flugu flautandi framhjá  mér, slógu S mælinn í botn og voru svo horfin.  Ég veit ekki hvað þetta getur hafa verið, kannske er þetta eitthvert náttúrulegt fyrirbæri?  Hefur einhver skýringu á þessu? var síðan að til 2330 þá kominn í 140 QSO og alveg við að hætta að nenna þessu.

Byrjaði aftur klukkan 0930 morguninn eftir og náði 20 samböndum á næstu fjórum klukkustundum!

Eyddi þvínæst löngum tíma í að reyna að ná sambandi við JA3YBK sem hafði þokkalegt merki en virtist ekki vera með móttakara, því hann hunsaði bæði mig og GM4POI og nokkrar OH stöðvar sem kölluðu líka í hann í næstum klukkustund.

Performance Optimization WordPress Plugins by W3 EDGE