SM0MDG will participate in a 10 man strong expedition to St Paul Island in the Gulf of St Lawrence, Nova Scotia, Canada, planned to be on the air July 2012.
St Paul Island is commonly referred to as the “Graveyard of the Gulf” which has also been the theme for the expedition logotype. The landing at St Paul Island is difficult and dependent on weather, but the team is experienced from such landings previously at the Flannans (EU-118), St. Kilda (EU-059), Market Reef (EU-053) and many other IOTA expeditions.
The team plans to deploy 4-5 stations to be active on all bands 160 to 6 meter using the call CY9M. Hexbeams will be used on high bands while verticals and receiving antennas will be service the lower bands.
For more detailed information as it become available and your opportunity to support the team, please visit www.cy9m.com.
As the log submission deadline was passed on February 28th SE0X piloted by SM0MDG was the highest ranking single operator effort in SM with a total claimed score of 440.250 points. A total of 1114 contacts where made with 61 DXCC plus 14 states and provinces in 26 hours of operation.
The goal was set at breaking my own 2010 SM record of 615.219 points, but I lowered my expectations because of current propagation. The final result mirrors the rise in solar activity attenuating Topband performance in every Topband contest since 2010.
CQ160 is one of my favorite contests of the year, and logging 1000+ contacts on Topband in one single weekend is more action than my total non-contest related activity on this fantastic band. I am already looking forward to CQ160 in 2013.
Because of the weather it was not convenient to use my own station this weekend, so I arranged to use SM0MLZ’s station SG0X located just North of Stockholm in the CQ160 SSB contest.
Patrik has not been bitten by the “top band bug” yet, but he has a nice station with a nice location for DX’ing and contesting. His topband antenna is an inverted L with 10-12 radials, perfect for picking up multipliers in the big contests, but not really competitive for Topband DX’ing. As Patrik is “in between amplifiers” I had to borrow one and was able to source a FL-2100Z from SM0NOR Ulf, not the most powerful box on the block, but at least an S-unit over the barefoot K3. I also added a N/E Pennant in addition to Patrik’s N/W Pennant.
With this rather modest setup I was ready for a though fight in what could be the most challenging SSB contest of the year, especially in SM where we are restricted to use only 35 kHz of the 160 meter band between 1810-1845.
It was natural that DX suffered, in addition to three NA states worked in Zone 5 I also logged some DX in Zone 17, 20 and 33 but that was it! Longer distances where not possible with the current propagation and my setup. In general I was able to hear better than I was getting out which shows that on Topband a good TX antenna and enough power are vital element of success.
CQ160 SSB Remote Shack
As an experiment the station was hooked up for remote access and the last hours of the contest was logged via the remote interface. To make it even more challenging the remote setup was based on a TS-480, only 100 watts and no RX antennas. 21 stations where logged using this setup, and despite its limitations the low number of stations logged is more likely due to the fact that there were very few left to log at the end of the weekend.
The final result for the weekend ended up at 340 contacts worked in 39 DXCC, 2 US states (ME and MA) and one Canadian province (POI). The total time active was 17 hours. This was considerable less than in CQ160 CW, probably because activity on the band was less and nighttime shorter than in the CW contest a month ago
Update: Even with this modes setup, a #1 SM rank was achieved!
When the final results where published for the 2011 edition of the CQ-160 CW Contest I was happy to see that SEØX had beaten the previous SM record in SOHP Assisted.
The previous record holder was SM2M operated by SM2LIY with a score of 453.128 in the 2009 CQ-160 CW contest. The final result of SE0X in 2011 was 480.998 points.
Also in CQ-160 SSB did SEØX break the SM record in SOHP (non-assisted) with a final score of 177.219 points.
The highest score of SE0X in any CQ-160 contest was in the CW contest 2010 (SOHP, non-assisted) where the final score ended up at 615.219 which is another SM record.
The 2012 CQ-160 Contest is around the corner, and I am crossing my fingers for good propagation despite the increase in solar activity.
When the log submission deadline was passed on December 21st, SEØX is the #1 ranking SOHP (non-assisted) station in Sweden by a wide margin.
With a final score of 2.315.985 I almost doubled my result of 2010 and ended up with twice the score of #2 in my category.
In 2011 the rise of the 24th solar cycle is the biggest contributor to the increase in score, but the upgrade to SO2R is another reason for this year’s improvement.
Check out the SEØX CW Skimmer 24/7 on the Reverse Beacon Network. You will be able to see what is being received at the station using an active omni directional antenna.
Our reverse beacon node is using a SDR-IQ receiver using a Clifton Laboratories Z1501 active antenna with a 3 meter whip and will show you the Callsign, frequency, CW speed and signal to noise ratio (S/N) for signals received. The receiver is programmed to scan the CW portion of the contest HF bands (160/80/40/20/15/10) with priority on 10 meter in daytime and 160 meter in night time.
The propagation outlook for CQ WW CW was really promising with the recent improvement of solar acitivity, and the sun provided for a lot of action on higher bands while the aurora stayed calm enough to allow for low bands to perform.
SMØMDG was operating with the SEØX in Single Operator, High Power category in Non-Assisted mode. The contest started out in a good pace with 62% of the contacts logged within the first 24 hours. The second night I took a 3 hour break to catch some sleep and getting ready for Sunday’s high band action. The solar flux dropped a little on Sunday and the rate was getting slower as the I was getting more tired, but another 1200 unique contacts where logged and I reached my goal of logging at least 3000 contacts.
10 meter was the joy of the contest, and as in CQ WW SSB Ten provided almost 500 contacts in 21 Zones and 52 countries. Its also worth to note that 80 meter performed well in number of contacts including quite a few DX, but it fell short on multipliers when compared to 40 meter. Most points where collected on 20 meter with 1299 contacts, 24 Zones and 57 countries (just 2 countries short of 40 which topped no of countries worked) and 160 meter provided 311 contacts, 7 Zones and 38 countries.
The station was set up for SO2R using a Elecraft K3 and a Kenwood TS-590S. The main station has a SteppIR while the other station operates on high bands using a temporary 3-band Spiderbeam. On low bands the 2 element phased array and the top loaded verticals for 80 and 160 where shared between the stations.
The final claimed score ended up at 2,3 million points, about a million more than the 2010 score. Next challenge is the ARRL 10 meter contest that I am very much looking forward to, it should be lots of fun now that the sun cooperates.
SE0X ranks #3 single operator in the CW part of the Scandinavian Activity Contest 2011 as the final scores are published today.
SM0MDG operated in the SOHP category using SO2R, Single Operator 2 Radios. The total rank of SE0X in the SOHP category in Scandinavia is #17 and the final score is 663.480 points and after score reduction.
The scores has been published in a record fast manner, applause and champagne to the organizers!
Look for the “X-team” to be active in CQWW from SM0MLZ’s station SG0X in CQWW this weekend. The category will be M2 and preparation are already in progress with a new phased array for 80 meters being installed for the contest.
Operators will be Patrik SM0MLZ/SG0X, Björn SM0MDG/SE0X, Ulf SM0NOR/SF0X, Erik SM0UXX/SD0X and Loic SM3VFE.
The propagation outlook for CQ WW CW was really promising with the recent improvement of solar acitivity, and the sun provided for a lot of action on higher bands while the aurora stayed calm enough to allow for low bands to perform.