In CQWW 160 CW this year the goal was to improve my score and to try to be competitive with the multi-op contest stations ranking top 3 in SM last year. Unfortunately band was not as “hot and willing” as it was a year ago. I guess the best TB season during this bottom of the solar cycle was 2010 and now its time for higher bands to improve. (As I write this the solar flux hits 113 which is the highest value since September 2005).
To be able to improve the score this year I decided to enter as assisted using the cluster and plus a local SDR/Skimmer feeding the band map with workable spots. This helped a little initially, but not as much as one would expect.
The band was at times very crowded and it was hard to find any space for a run wider than 200-300 hz, but the paradox was that it felt like there were fewer stations to log compared to a year ago. Maybe there where fewer stations active, but with longer operating hours and bigger signals they where filling up the band anyway.
Initially the QSO rate was OK, but at the end things got very slow. On Sunday night it was really hard to stay awake during endless CQ calls, non-productive S&P and band maps filled already worked spots.
At the end a total of almost 1.050 contacts where logged, about 70 contacts less than last year. But the real difference was a much lower number of multipliers, especially the NA states where fewer, most probably because of weaker propagation this year. The final score landed at 507.567 points, about 110.000 below my #1 SO achievement of CQWW 160 CW 2010.
Finally I did beat one of the contest stations mentioned earlier, but it was not a fair deal as it was a single op effort with few contacts according to his claimed score. The two other stations still had the upper hand with more operating hours and bigger antenna farms. To summarize the contest result was a little disappointing as I did aim to increase the score, but as usual it was a fun and challenging contest as usual.
Here is a quick summary of our Philippines IOTA tour. When landing in Manila we were met by Ramon DU1UGZ and Thelma DU1IVT at the airport. Later that night we had a nice dinner and then went on to visit Robin DU9RG who lives just outside Manila in a beautiful house. After the warm welcome in Manila we met with the DXØDX team leader Chris VK3FY who informed us about the situation and the expected delay in departure. At this point there was hope to send the first part of the team the following day, so we relocated to Puerto Princesa in Palawan Island (OC-128) to be ready.
When arriving in Puerto Princesa and getting together with the rest of the team bad news of more delays followed the coming days, then on January 12th it was decided to postpone the expedition.
After some initial disappointment we decided to leave Puerto Princesa and extend our planned IOTA activity. We had already been active from Palawan Island for several nights (and so had Dave DU1/K3LP) so there where no reason to continue emitting RF from there.
We relocated to Caticlan were we rented a boat to take us to the Semirara Island Group (OC-125), our target was Caluya, a small island that seldom sees visitors from our part of the world. Like most remote pacific islands our presence generated lots of interest in the village where we first of all where welcomed by the coast guard who wanted to know our names, age and marriage status. The children of Caluya where very curios, and everywhere we walked we had a posse following us. We where only able to stay two days at Caluya and with limited power availability and S7 QRN levels we where able to make a total of 800 contacts mainly on 20 and 40 meter.
Next stop on our trip was the planned activity from Tablas Island (OC-244) in the Romblon province. Because of the changed travel schedule we arrived two days early to Tablas and where active on the afternoon of January 15. Our location, the Buenavista Beach Resort, is a very remote and QRN free environment on the beach. Here we had more space for antennas and a total of three antennas where erected. On 40-17 meters we used a vertical dipole, on 15-10 meter a diamond loop and finally we also went on Topband using an inverted L with one elevated radial stretching to the beach.
Propagation on higher bands where very slow and Topband was very quiet except for some AS/OC and one opening to EU on January 17 in our sunset. 40-17 meter were our preferred bands and we worked more than 1.800 contacts from Tablas Island. Our normal operating time was in mornings, afternoons and evenings local time. In midday the bands where pretty much quiet.
Following our participation in the multi-national DXØDX Dxpedition to the Spratly islands, Christian EA3NT and I plan to be active from Tablas Island OC-244 between January 17-21, 2011.
The operation will be holiday style using 100 watt and simple antennas.
Look for us on 40, 20 & 17m CW/SSB. QSL both DU1/EA3NT & DU1/SMØMDG via EA3NT.
I am now getting ready for my participation in the DXØDX Spratly expedition January 6-24 2011 where a team of more than 30 operators will be deployed to erect and operate 12 stations from Thitu Island (Pag-Asa in Filipino).
The planning for this Expedition has been underway for more than a year and team leader Chris Dimitrijevic VK3FY has gathered a truly international team with members possessing many different skills.
The DX0DX expedition will be operating from three different camps on Thitu Island, the CW Camp in the North, SSB Camp in the South and a dedicated 160 meter and RTTY Camp on the Eastern beach of the island.
A big effort i being made on Topband and a few of the operators will also remain on the island after the expedition to participate in the CQWW 160 contest Januari 28-30.
On January 3 I will board a flight with destination to Manila to take part in this fun adventure, hope to hear you in the pile-ups.
Full information about the Thitu Island expedition can be found on the official DX0DX website.
SMØMDG will be active from SEØX in the Stew Perry Topband Distance Challenge this weekend, December 18-19. Entry will be in SOHP.
The unique part in this contest is that the distance that is counted for score, “QSO Points” are computed by taking the distance between the centers of the two grid squares. Count a minimum of one point per QSO and an additional point for every 500 kilometers distance.
The full rules are availble from the Boring Amateur Radio Club website, here.
SMØMDG Björn was active from SEØX in the CQWW CW Contest working 2118 unique contacts in 39 hours of non-assisted activity.
Propagation on lower bands was good but as usual 20 meters provided the most points and 15 meters supplied the most country multipliers. Only 22 contacts where logged on 10 meters but 40 meters was over performing compared to 2009, possibly thanks to the new 2-element phased array just installed at SEØX.
The goal of logging at least 2000 contacts and doubling the 2009 score where both reached, and the final (claimed) score is 1.383 137 points.
SEØX will be activated by me, SM0MDG, in the CQWW CW Contest this weekend. I will be entering in the SO-HP non assisted category with the goal to improve the scores from last year.
In CQWW 160 CW this year the goal was to improve my score and to try to be competitive with the multi-op contest stations ranking top 3 in SM last year. Unfortunately band was not as “hot and willing” as it was a year ago. I guess the best TB season during this bottom of the solar cycle was 2010 and now its time for higher bands to improve. (As I write this the solar flux hits 113 which is the highest value since September 2005).
Following our participation in the multi-national 
