As I tuned across the Top Band after watching TV, I came across a small pile-up.
A single call with the Arctic King and 5N7M in Abuja, Nigeria was in the log.
I had previously worked and confirmed another station in Nigeria, but this was very satisfying nonetheless.
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The Arctic King will not be denied.
Richard, K5NA piloted TF4X in the CQ World Wide 160-Meter Contest.
He made 1620 contacts (1531 after dupes), 42 Sections/States and 77 DXCC countries for a raw score of 1,056,244 points.
I believe that the noise level here may be up to 60dB less than that experienced in other countries and built up areas.
His score exceeds that of some Multi-Operator stations. I would like to mention that he was called by ZL3IX for the 5th QSO in Communications History between TF and ZL. Three of those QSOs belong to ZL3IX. He was also called by CE1/K7CA in Chile for the second ever QSO between TF and CE.
His QSO with VP8ORK in South Orkney is the First Ever QSO between VP8 and TF.
All equipment performed flawlessly during the operation and the Arctic King never wavered in his resolve.
All Hail the King !
Richard wrote the following ‘soapbox’ about his effort:
TF4X – 2011 CQWW 160M CW
In early December, 2010, TF4M (Thor) contacted me about doing the ARRL 160M Contest from his station near Bildudalur, Iceland. Since it was too late for me to arrange my schedule for that event, I asked about the 2011 CQWW 160M CW Contest. After Thor checked his schedule and commitments, he agreed for me to come for that contest.
The first thing we did when arriving here two days before the contest was to get a tour of the antennas. They are amazing, to say the least, and represent a degree of work and commitment that few in the world would attempt. On the HF bands Thor has installed five rhombics in all the major directions. Two rhombics are reversible giving seven total directions. I played with them a little before the contest and was impressed. If the station was in the direction of the rhombic, you heard it. If you switched rhombics, the station disappeared. Amazing.
But I was here for the 160M contest and that was a different set of antennas. Thor has installed a vertical transmitting antenna that he calls the “Arctic King”. The antenna is a very large straight pole (It is the largest in diameter, weight, and height in Iceland) with two wires up the sides to a capacity top hat. This antenna is on the shore surrounded on three sides by seawater. It is located a long ways from the station and Thor ran thousands of feet of very large low-loss hardline to get to it. The antenna works!
Just as impressive is the receiving setup. Thor has installed four reversible beverages for the major directions. Added to the receiving setup is another 160M vertical located a long ways from the transmitting antenna. They all WORK very well. Anything that could hear me, I could hear even better. Imagine listening from a location that has zero atmospheric noise. That is what I had here.
I just reviewed the spots for the contest and found that many spots said that I had “good ears”. I had to laugh because I remember the comments I would see after a 160M contest from noisy Texas when the comments would sometimes say, “no ears”.
The only confusing factor of hearing so well is that sometimes we did not have transmitting conditions to an area that I was hearing quite well. So it would seem that sometimes we were not getting out, but in reality we just had poor conditions in that direction. Aurora is always a factor in transmitting from this part of the world. That’s why Thor has put so much effort into a superior transmitting antenna.
I used a K3 in diversity mode for practically all of the contest.
Operating this contest somewhere other than the USA is a real education for me. The band seemed always open to Europe even hours after European sunrise. There are many, many stations operating this contest in Europe. The band is as crowded here as it is in the USA during the contest. There is lots of splatter and key clicks, but you learn to live with it and do the best you can. The conditions to Europe dominated the contest.
The USA and other parts of the world were a different matter. I had hoped that the spots would bring lots of USA QSOs, but there were not many callers. I missed a lot of W7 multipliers and I probably should have done more searching and pouncing to find them. But I worried that even if I heard a station well, there was no guarantee that they could hear me. I seemed to hear everyone regardless of conditions. However, I did work a number of California stations.
One of the surprises was hearing and working J28AA in zone 37. Thor had said before the contest that he only needed zone 37 to complete his 160M WAZ After the QSO, I immediately jumped up and called Thor. Thor rushed in and started calling and in a couple of minutes had his last zone. It was a magic moment for all of us, me, Thor, and Susan. We drank a toast to Thor’s success while I continued to call CQ and work stations.
Two other QSOs come to mind, having VP8ORK answer my CQ and later, having KH2/N2NL answer my CQ. I worked a couple of Jas, not nearly as many as I expected. So conditions were not very good in that direction. Someone on my frequency said a BA1 was calling me. I listened but I never heard anything of it. That was the only thing that heard me that I did not hear all weekend.
It was a pleasure to operate from Thor’s station. Thor is an excellent cook and introduced us to many of the traditional Icelandic dishes and treats. I probably gained a few pounds from all the good food. He is a fine host.
This was truly an adventure.
73, Richard – TF/K5NA
Soapbox comments from other contestants may be read on the 3830 reflector.
The Certificate has arrived!
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite
The 2011 Microlite DXPedition to the South Orkney Islands is finally QRV on 160 meters.
Spurred on by the fact that VP8ORK called TF4X in the CQ WW 160m contest for the First Ever contact between VP8 and TF on 160-Meters, I had the feeling that they would start calling CQ themselves after the contest was over.
4 hours of listening resulted in this wonderful DX QSO. Most certainly the First and Second Ever contacts between TF and VP8 on 160 meters.
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My total now stands at 167 worked and 152 confirmed on 160 meters.
The Arctic King has once again shown his power.
I worked J28AA in Djibouti ( Zone 37 ) on 160 meters during the CQ WW 160 meter contest.
I understand that J28AA uses a vertical antenna on the roof of his apartment and his signal was rather weak.
I received this note from Darko by email:
I recently bought a 43ft S9V vertical antenna with an additional coil
for 160m with the intent to use it at Moucha Island AF-053.
Going to Moucha island was delayed, and I set up the antenna in the
attic of the building where I live. The lower part of the antenna with
coil and two radials are located approximately 3m below the metal roof
and the rest 10m of antenna is threaded through a hole in the
roof. I can not access on the roof!!!!
Hustler 6BTV is located at other side of building.
This was my first activity on 160m.
I hope that the building owner will not complaint and I will be able
to use this new fishing pole antenna.
I was only few hours in the contest and logged 117 QSO’ with Elecraft K3, 90W.
73 CUL
Darko
Extremely strong signals from SK7DX about 200Hz lower in frequency made copying the weak signal of J28AA very difficult as you can hear in the recording.
7 large Beverage antennas plus a OMNI-directional vertical antenna connected to each receiver (giving 8 x8=64 possible combinations of Diversity) in my Elecraft K3 transceiver along with narrow filtering pulled the DX station out of the cacophony of deafening signals.
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This completes my quest for the WAZ160 Award done in about two years.
During the 75 years this award has been available, only 160 stations have completed all 40 zones.
More than 2,000 people have successfully climbed Mt. Everest and more than 200 people have died attempting the climb.
Long live the Arctic King !
FLASH !:: LOTW confirmation has been received :
Station Call Sign TF4M
DXCC ICELAND
CQ Zone 40
ITU Zone 17
IOTA EU-021
Grid HP85fp
Worked Station
Worked J28AA
DXCC DJIBOUTI (382)
Date/Time 2011-01-30 01:20:40
Mode CW (CW)
Band 160M
Frequency 1.810
QSL 2011-02-01 17:00:08
Record ID 322443455 Received: 2011-01-30 16:13:32
The QSL card for my contact with PZ5T arrived today.
The 160m score is now 164 entities Worked / 152 Confirmed.
Perhaps it is possible to reach 200 countries one day…
Top Band seemed very quiet, as I was reading a book in the shack I had left the radio on 1828 kHz by chance – listening towards Japan/VK3 with a Beverage antenna.
VK3PA started calling CQ and a hard but succesful QSO was the result. This is a difficult path around twice the distance to Japan.
16709.9 km to be exact. 
See the article JA-TF 160 on the menu above for the explanation of this.
Only 13 contacts have been made between Iceland and Australia on 160 meters before this QSO.
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I understand that this contact completes Allan´s WAZ160 – Congratulations OM !
Later I heard T88TF in Palau, calling – his signals were weak and he did not appear to hear any of the EU stations calling him.
Start Slide Show with PicLens LiteNothing beats the satisfaction of working a new country on Top Band!
I now have 164 countries worked on 160m.
Listen to my QSO with XU7ACY in Cambodia
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Because conditions were very difficult, I was not absolutely certain that Peter had got my call correct, so I listened for a while and when his signal peaked, I called him again for insurance since he wasn´t busy.
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I used a 400 meter long Beverage antenna with nearly 30dB preamplification to receive XU7ACY´s signals.
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What a pleasure !
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite4W6MM was featured in the June 2000 issue of CQ Ham Radio magazine and was also featured in advertisements by Yaesu.
hi Alex,I was telling a friend about the difficulty I had in getting a QSO from that area and that you were the only person going there once a year for two days.
No, Thor, I was not the only person who activated Zone 2 in the CQ WW Contests. As a matter of fact, my friend Yuri VE2IM (VE3DZ) goes there since 1999 and has already 90,000 QSO in his Zone 2 LOG. Another friend of mine, Victor VA2WDQ, operated as VE2EKA from Zone 2, and a group of Americans come to Zone 2 every year for the last 4-5 years to operate as VE2DXY, but only in SSB part of the CQ WW. The good news is that very active CW and DX operator Steve, VE2TKH moved recently to Sept-Iles, and is very active operating from VE2CSI club station. As for me, I try to go there every year, this time I was active only for 7 days – from November 23rd till November 29th, 2010.
Note : I missed VE2IM´s operation in September/October due to suffering near fatal post-operative complications. VA2WDQ was indeed QRV in December, but no mention was made of Zone 2 with his spots, so I am not convinced he operated from Zone 2. Spots for VE2YDX on 160 meters were few and also fell in the period of my illness, they seemed to be mostly on phone as well. VE2TKH does not seem to operate 160 meters either, so even all this activity does not mean that Zone 2 is available on 160 meters.
I listened for you the entire first night until around 10 in the morning when you closed down – all this time on 80m and great conditions into NA on Top Band the whole time! The second night of the contest conditions got very poor, I worked you on some other bands, and finally around 0200 in the morning I gave up hope that you would ever go to 160. I turned off my amplifier and the radio and as I was going to bed, I decided to check for you one more time and there you were ! After about one hour of calling, I made the QSO with you, with NA and EU stations calling constantly on top of our QSO, I wasn´t 100% sure that you had logged me, so I tried to raise you again without success, I even found you on a new frequency after you moved….
Yes, Thor, I was very pleased that you called me on different bands – contacts with TF lands are also very rare for people around the World and in Quebec particularly. Our contact on 80 meters was in the first 10 minutes of the Contest and I was also happy to have such rare multiplier right st the start of the Contest.
When you called me later on 20 and then on 40 meters, I understood that you are making a serious effort in the Contest and I was kind of mentally prepared to listen for you on Topband. But when I finally heard you on 160, your signal exceeded my expectations! It was very strong, real S “9″ on the meter and there was absolutely no doubt about who was calling me. The only problem was a huge QRM from the nearby station and relatively wide passband of my radio.
So it would be interesting to know, what your setup was, what kind of antenna you had on 160, how many QSOs you made on Top Band in the contest, what did the USA and EU wall sound like, how long did you stay on Top etc etc?
The set-up on 160 was not very good. Something you will see on the attached pictures. I used FT1000MP Mark V radio and a 400 watts amplifier. The antenna was a simple Alpha Delta dipole for 3 bands – 40, 80 and 160 m with apex at about 45 feet. I used same antenna on receive. The conditions on 80 were so good the first night, so I stayed there almost 9 hours from the start of the Contest and till I went to sleep for a couple of hours. After I woke up I decided to collect some mults on 160, Sometimes it took me a few minutes to complete a QSO and some of the stations did not hear me at all. 30 minutes later I left Topband and I only came back for 20 minutes to work some multipliers at around 23:10 UTC. About 2 and a half hours later I returned to 160 and stayed there for another 2.5 hours. When the rate dropped significantly I left Topband, so altogether in the Contest I spent not more than 3 and a half hours on 160 and my QSO total was 212, with 39 countries and 15 Zones. There was no surprise in such modest Topband score, because I almost never heard EU or other rare DX, and NA stations did not give me too many points.
However, what really surprised me – was the propagation on 160 after the Contest. 2 hours after the end of the Contest I felt like I could make few more contacts on Topband. I never heard something like that in my entire life! There were not too many stations on band probably because a lot of them were tired after the contest, but EU stations were very loud and I had a real pile-up even with my very modest set-up! I heard and worked many stations from UA1, UA3, UA4, UA6, UR, LZ, YU, SP, DL, I, F, G, EA – and a lot of them were S 9+20 dB! Some of them even had key clicks and sounded like local stations! At some point I was in doubt – maybe I was tired after the Contest and confused the band with 80 or 40? But no, it was indeed the 160 m band! Was it really a 599+ signal on my S-meter or was it just very low noise level at that time which made all the signals look powerful? Another surprise was realizing that not all EU stations heard me well – some of them continued to call me on top of my transmission and others did not come back to me when I replied to them… Same story with the stations from N.A. – I copied some of the U.S. station at about 559-579 level… I do not operate on 160 m very often, so this phenomena was quite new to me.
It must have been difficult on your end as well.
Yes, Thor, indeed – it was really difficult to copy a station coming at 539-559 level when a bunch of 599+ callers are on the frequency. So in case like this I was doing what other people usually do – when I finally could copy a DX station with relatively strong signal, I completed a QSO with it and asked N.A. to wait so I could call “DX only” for a few minutes. Usually I could make few other DX QSOs before I could return to the N.A. pile-up.
If I had not made that QSO with you, I would have had to wait another year for the next shot at Zone 2, perhaps in even worse conditions, or perhaps you would not go to 160 meters at all ! It could have taken years and years for me to work Zone 2. What is the reason Zone 2 is so rare?, with thousands of VE hams on the doorstep of Zone 2, why isn´t it activated more often?
It’s hard to understand for me as well. What can I say – probably there are not so many DX-men or Contest-men in Zone 2. HAMs mostly active on VHF, over repeaters. When someone visits Zone 2 for a Contest or DXpedition, it’s not easy to put up a good antenna for theTopband because of time limit and/or weather. Also, because it’s far North, the conditions there are not stable and sometimes restrict activity even more than lack of good set-up..
Considering the difficulty in working Zone 2, even though it is the closest Zone to mine and I had expected it to be a piece of cake, our QSO remains one of the greatest moments in my quest for WAZ160.
I am very glad to help you and others to work this rare Zone. It gives me a big pleasure to know that people can finally have this QSO in their LOGs. Actually, it was my goal – to give Zone 2 to as many people as possible, so my trips are not for nothing.
Happy New Year 2011, Thor! I wish you luck on the air!
73! Alexey
VE2XAA
This is my collection of cards which represent the 40 Zones for the CQ Worked All Zones Award (WAZ) on 160 meters CW.
Here is a list showing the countries of each Zone.
I need a contact with one of the countries of Zone 37 to complete my WAZ160.
These QSL cards represent the 40 Zones for the CQ Worked All Zones (WAZ) Award. Working all Zones on 160 meters is very difficult from the Auroral Zone. My WAZ160 was completed in about 3 years with my QSL from 5H3EE from Zone 37 on 23 February 2011. NO SKEDs are made at TF4M.
76 Photos
