All in all, it was quite a weekend at VK4KW.
A team gathered to have some fun as a multi-multi for CQWW CW. The station is designed as an M/2, so it took a bit of persuasion to convince it that it needed to step-up to the mark and accept that M/M was required of it!
A nasty storm hit two days prior to the contest weekend – it was so severe that it made it onto the national news. This resulted in some last-minute repairs needing attention which consumed time and effort which would’ve been good to focus on some temporary station enhancements for the weekend, but such is life. We managed with what we had and lamented about aspects which could not come to fruition…..
A motley crew originally from ZL, G, DL and VK, the operators were: ZL2IFB, VK3IM, VK2IA, VK4BAA, VK4SN, VK4TS, VK4NEF, VK4NDX and VK4CT.
HF seemed to be the place to be, with 10m and 15m getting into the swing of things early. 20m took time to wake up, but it finally decided to come to the party and produced some good DX over the weekend.
A newly installed 160m vertical was put to the test, with some DX worked but not much to be found otherwise. EU and NA DX could be heard and several “?” received but we’d got onto the band a bit too late and missed a few mults as a result. One of the station enhancements was to try and capitalise on 160m but it wasn’t to be. 160m was very noisy indeed.
80m was noisy as hell initially, until Sunday night when the noise vale lifted to reveal EU mults and QSOs. Not in the same league as 10m for throughput, but good for a few mults anyway.
40m was the domain of Brian ‘Slugger’ Miller, VK3MI, who took-up the reigns and had sole occupancy of the operating position. Anyone attempting to sit in the chair was immediately ousted and gently informed of the error of their ways and then doubt cast upon their parentage. A superb effort, with plenty of QSOs in the log – nice one Brian!
CW virgin Dave VK4NDX, sat-in with Trent VK4TS to listen to the melee. A true gentleman, Trent was gentle – Dave loved it – and now has a hankering for more exposure to CW. It was a good time to ease-in gently as 15m was not too busy so talking Dave through CW operation was a good move.
The station generally behaved itself – only a 12v PSU death at 10 minutes from the contest end and a rotator which made some nasty mechanical noises on 15m, but the remainder worked well and gave no trouble for the station owner. Thankfully, the weather was good and no more storms experienced.
A big “thank you” to all of the operators who made this M/M possible. It was a great weekend and good to meet-up again after a gap of some years in some cases.
Score is in the region of 22.1 million, for a fraction over 10,150 QSOs – including dupes.
73,
Phil
VK4BAA / VK4KW