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EUHFC 2011

EUHFC: one of my favorite contests. No worries about DX openings, no questions about beaming JA or USA, not being total loss after the contest (it’s only 12 hours). In the past I had some troubles with horizontally polarized antennas on a small lot (last year) but htis year I decided to fix that. NO more worries about 40m since I added the rotary dipole. One of my best decisions ever! So the plan was to make a dual band 80/160m dipole. On Thursday I took apart the old 40/80 dipole and made it into a 80/160m dipole. The 160m part is my old coil loaded shorty dipole. I’m not really pleased with the 160m resonance dip. It is VERY narrow. Of course this is typical behavior for an antenna loaded with a coil but with the added 80m dipole, it becomes extremely high Q. I need to think on how to fix that but I see no use for this antenna except for EUHFC. Maybe a fieldday? The 80m CW dip is wide as a barn. I saw the same thing on the 40/80 antenna. 40m was very broadband, 80m was sharper. But the coils on 160m make it even worse.

There were no problems before the contest, I was ready in due time. I only worried about predicted T-storms so I monitored the online thunderstorm and lightning maps. A sudden explosion of the A-index to 27 was another possible problem. I made for a slow first hour on 15 and 10 with only 70 QSO. I’d hoped for a +100 hour. The good thing is the rate improved and I had 6 hours of +100 QSO. Here’s the rate sheet.

Date          Hour        Total      1_8       3_5        7         14        21        28       Running Total
 2011-08-06    12          69          0         0         0         0         25        44        69
 2011-08-06    13          100         0         0         0         0         76        24        169
 2011-08-06    14          132         0         0         0         105       21        6         301
 2011-08-06    15          105         0         0         0         89        16        0         406
 2011-08-06    16          86          0         0         0         36        9         41        492
 2011-08-06    17          52          0         0         0         19        26        7         544
 2011-08-06    18          122         0         0         107       10        5         0         666
 2011-08-06    19          76          0         0         37        25        9         5         742
 2011-08-06    20          107         0         37        70        0         0         0         849
 2011-08-06    21          125         0         125       0         0         0         0         974
 2011-08-06    22          88          16        28        44        0         0         0         1062
 2011-08-06    23          74          74        0         0         0         0         0         1136
 Total         All         1136        90        190       258       284     187       127

The 52 hour (17 utc) was when I took a 15 minute break for Basic Input / Output, followed by some slow S&P. I went to 160m with two hours to go but soon I retuned to 40m and 80m because little was heard and worked there. I spent the last hour on 160 because I had few QSO and little multipliers so every QSO was a hit there. Still 160m was VERY noisy and  it wasn’t a big success. I have +4 mults and -1 QSO compared to last year but still no where near the magic 2007 edition.

I did not use the packet cluster since I thought it was forbidden. It was until last year, wasn’t it? But now I can’t seem to find that in the rules anymore. So I guess it’s allowed in EUHFC. The memo announcing this must have slipped my attention. Would it have changed something? Probably not that much. I’m not the point ‘n click type.

I quick look at 3830 this morning showed that once again my station can’t compete with the big boys but I made the best of it with my limited resources. Limited compared to top scorers that is. It was a fun contest once again (could be more fun without torturing our ears on 160m 🙂 ) and I had a ball trying to keep the rate to 100/hr. I’ll be back next year for one of the most enjoyable contests of the year!

3 replies on “EUHFC 2011”

Hi Franki,

quite surprised that although we both worked over 1100 QSOs, the only time I heard you was on 160m! I also fell into the unassisted trap, thinking cluster was not allowed… I guess it could have helped to find a few more mults, but then again, from central EU there’s no chance to play with the big boys anyway 🙂

73,
Fabian DJ1YFK

Yeah, and I did a lot of S&P, much more than I usually do. But I didn’t come across your call. So my 160m low dipole signals make it at least into the Munich area 🙂
Central EU: we’re screwed anyhow.

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