Our recent MSØINT IOTA expedition to the Flannan Isles has been nominated by the Clipperton DX Club for the Expedition of the Year trophy in company with excellent expeditions as K4M – Midway and E4X – Palestine. The winner will be decided by voting at the Clipperton DX Club website here. You can vote starting today.
73!
SEØX ranks #1 Sweden Single Operator in the CQWW SSB contest 2009 according to the official results published in the current issue of CQ. I was very happy to see the final result and it feels very nice being number one SM single op, even beating the assisted single ops.
Read the full results article from CQ here.
Read the CQWW SSB report here.
73 de Björn, SMØMDG
The IARU HF Championship is a 24 hour challenge making it perfect for a single operator entry. In addition to chasing IARU zone multipliers participants also chase IARU HQ station multipliers. My personal goal was to improve my #1 SM single operator results from 2009, therefore I entered in SOHP SSB.
The contest kicked off in high tempo from the start, but during Saturday night the QSO rate slowed down. At one point I considered to re-enter into the mixed mode category to be able to get some action from CW. Early Sunday morning the pace picked up again and I decided to stay in the SSB category. At that time I also set the final goal to 1.300 contacts and 800.000 points which would be a big improvement of the 2009 result.
The most reliable band this time was 20 meter where a total of 677 contacts where logged which is three times the contacts made on 40 meter, the second best band. 15 meter was open but not in its best shape, but it did provide equal the number of zones to 40 meter. 10 meter provided less than 100 contacts, mostly through sporadic E but also a few occasional AS and SA DX contacts.
Lower bands where a bit of a challenge due to exceptionally high static levels. On 80 meter the static crashes where at times 20 dB over S9 making it very hard to work any DX. The pennants didn’t help much, it was just too much static in the air. On 40 meters the static was higher than normal, but here some NA, SA and AS DX stations came through.
Before the contest I decided not to bother with a Topband TX antenna, therefore no stations where logged on 160 meters.
The final result was good considering the challenges. In 18 hours and 45 minutes I was able to log 1.824 unique stations, 88 zones and 111 HQ stations resulting in a (claimed) score of 860.078 points.
The IARU HF Championship 2010 was a fun event, and it was well wort the effort of operating in 30-34 Celsius for 19 hours. Now it will be interesting to see how the results compare.
73 de Björn, SM0MDG
A total of 8194 contacts where made from Eilean Mor, Flannan Isles (EU-118) this past weekend by the MSØINT team. Operators where EA3NT Christian, EA2TA George, F4BKV Vincent , IZ7ATN Simon, SMØMDG Björn, and team leader MMØNDX Col.
MSØINT on Eilean Mor, Flannan Isles EU-118
More information on the MSØINT websitbe.
In a Pan-European project, SMØMDG Bjørn, EA3NT Christian, EA2TA George, F4BKV Vincent , IZ7ATN Simon and leader MMØNDX Col will be active from the remote North Atlantic island group of the Flannans 20 miles north west of the Outer Hebrides. Activated in 1989, 1995, 1999 and 2002, the mysterious Flannan Isles are certainly a much needed but extremely difficult to access IOTA.
Full information on the expedition website, MSØINT.
73 de Björn,
SM0MDG
Better late than never, here is a short summary of the WPX CW Contest where I entered in the SOHP Assisted category. In this contest the 10 meter band was cooking with Es and this band provided lots of contacts and multipliers for a change.
As the topband season has ended and the topband vertical is in storage, 40 meters was the band I focused at when not on 10 or 20 meters. 15 and 80 meters also provided many contacts but fewer multipliers, so they had to take a back seat this time.
Another goal of this contest was to test CW Skimmer with the SDR-IQ receiver and feed discovered spots to the N1MM band maps. This worked really well and I was surprised what kind of signals Skimmer was able to decode just using the SDR and a Clifton Labs active antenna. Some really nice DX spots where passed on to the band map.
The contest ended with 1272 contacts worked with 619 prefixes resulting in a final claimed score of 1.419.367 points. 40 meters provided most points but 10 meter was just two contacts behind which is a good evidence of the excellent Es.
CU in the IARU HF World Championship 2010 July 10-11, but before that I will be active from Flannan Isles EU-118 together with an international team as MS0INT.
The 7SØX team had a fantastic weekend in the CQ WPX SSB contest. Our aim was to defend the #1 SM Multi-Op Single TX HP position from last year and in addition we also wanted to improve our score from 2009 to make us more competitive on a European level.
The team of four operators, F4BKV Vincent, SMØMDG Björn, SMØMLZ Patrik and SMØNOR Ulf gathered for lunch and transportation to the SEØX station at midday on Friday. At the station preparations went smooth and after a nice dinner and some catching up over a coffee we went on the air with a competitive mindset.
The first overnight part of the contest was pacing on well and Saturday we had a nice opening on 15 meter to harvest in addition to the predicted action on 20. The second overnight shift was slower than the first, but the pace picked up during Sunday with another good opening on 15. During Saturday we logged 55% of all contacts and the rate between runs and S&P was 60/40. During Sunday the runs where not as productive and around 60% of Sunday’s contacts where obtained by S&P.
On Sunday the 10 meter band opened briefly to the East. Only 16 stations worked but some nice DX including VK, HS, VU, YB, 9M2 and UA9 which is nice for a change.
The final result of the weekend is a total of 1911 station logged (excluding dupes) and 959 prefixes resulting in a total (claimed) score of 4.267.550 points, a nice increase from the 2009 score.
73 de 7SØX team!
Look for 7SØX being active from the SEØX contest station this weekend in the CQ WPX SSB contest. F4BKV Vincent, SMØMDG Björn, SMØMLZ Patrik and SMØNOR Ulf will be defending last years #1 SM position in the Multi Op Single TX category, but the ultimate goal is to improve the overall EU ranking.
CU in the QRM!
It is time to summarize another contest weekend as ARRL International DX SSB Contest has come to an end. This time we packed our stuff and went to SM0MLZ Patrik’s station SGØX we entered in the Multi-Op Single-TX category. Due to some initial computer struggle (thanks to Winoze 7) we started about one hour late.
This time 20 meters was the work horse band and it provided 70% of the total points and 58 multipliers. Second was 40 meters followed by 15 and 80 meters but the contact rate and score where considerably lower on those bands. On Topband only one contact where made and 10 meters never opened. With one man short in the team we did not operate the full contest, after 31 hours on the air we finished with 642 stations on the log and a claimed score of 236.898.
Before the weekend we where really hopeful to get the 40 meter monobander up in the air, but as we arrived to the station we realized that this would provide a too big challenge making us unable to take advantage of the daylight openings on 20 meter.
Photos from the ARRL SSB weekend, click to enlarge:
73 de SGØX Team
Team “X-men” with SMØMDG Björn (also SEØX), SMØMLZ Patrik (also SGØX), SMØNOR Ulf (also SFØX) and SMØUXX Erik (mr X!) will be active in the ARRL International DX Contest SSB this weekend. We will enter in the Mutil OP Single TX category with the call SGØX.
Hopefully we will be able to get the 40 meter 2-element yagi up in the air in time for the contest, that would certainly spice up the scores.
GL in the Contest!