OK, we were QRV! Again due to lack of operators and supporters we were operating in the October IARU-VHF contest on 70cm only with a small team from Mt. Schneekopf in JO50JP. Some QSOs on the mm-waves were done, though.
The first time in history of DL0GTH we've missed an IARU-contest on 23cm and up. But with 4-5 people it is impossible to build up the full setup, so we had to concentrate the activity on 1 band only. Is this the end of DL0GTH? Who knows...
The report starts with the weather: after the excellent Septembercontest the forecasters promised again a quite sunny weekend. We arrived on Friday afternoon at the contest site with 2 people and started building up antennas immediately. The setup was planned as in previous years:
2x M² 432-9WL | 6m | 70mm alu mast |
4x DK7ZB | 6m | 70mm alu mast |
8x double quad | 8m | Geroh tower |
8x double quad | 6m | Geroh tower |
The quad systems were ready on Friday evening at dawn giving us time for an extended dinner. The wind was already getting stronger at night. On Saturday the rest of the crew arrived and all antennas works ans station setup were finished well in time.
Contest started with good rates while the conditions seemed to be normal. Meanwhile the wind had turned into a strong storm with heavy gusts. During the night we really worried about the antennas but everything stayed well until the end of contest. We did our best to fill the log but the last few hours were boring due to lack of callers.
Again we enjoyed a tough head-to-head race with DR9A on the slovhf live score board! While we were leading the race until Sunday morning with 10k points +/-, DR9A showed a big finish and we ended up some 8k points behind. Congrats!
Some mm-wave QSOs with nice DX were also made during the contest which was quite challenging due to the weather conditions.
Preliminary results:
Band | QSOs | WWLoc | DXCC | Points | km/QSO | ODX | Call | ODXLoc |
144 MHz | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
432 MHz | 689 | 96 | 20 | 218617 | 317 | 1034 | YR7J | KN15 |
1,3 GHz | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
2,3 GHz | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
3,4 GHz | 1 | 1 | 1 | 68 | 68 | 68 | DH1NAX | JO50 |
5,7 GHz | 1 | 1 | 1 | 68 | 68 | 68 | DH1NAX | JO50 |
10 GHz | 6 | 2 | 2 | 630 | 105 | 189 | OL4A | JO60 |
24 GHz | 1 | 1 | 1 | 68 | 68 | 68 | DH1NAX | JO50 |
47 GHz | 3 | 2 | 1 | 322 | 107 | 127 | DG2NES | JO60 |
76 GHz | 3 | 2 | 1 | 322 | 107 | 127 | DG2NES | JO60 |
122 GHz | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
135 GHz | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
Laser | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
Crew photo: