DFØFA – IARU Region 1 VHF Contest September 2014

Another contest is done, this time on VHF. 😉 It’s been time for this year’s IARU Region 1 VHF Contest. So we went up our local hilltop again to participate. “We” that were Heiko – DG1BHA and Uwe – DL3BQA as locals, Knut – DGØZB and Paul – DL5CW from Berlin (about an 100 km drive), Andy – DL9USA from Spremberg (about 300 km to go) and last not least 😉 myself, Olli – DH8BQA (with about 700 km one tour). Besides those fine VHF operators the guys from one of the local radio clubs made a small field day before the contest, too, so we had even more visitors up on the hill: XYL Doris – the “better half” ;) of DL3BQA, YL Gitta – DL3BYA, Horst – DL3BVA, Ronny – DL3BUA, Micha – DM7MRE, Ferdi – DL4FWP, Uwe – DG1BRB, Horst – DC7NEU and SWL Horst – DE3HLA. Lots of nice talks, good food and beer and best of all – a really nice sunny and warm weekend after quite some ugly weather during the last few weeks! 🙂

2014-September-Contest-0032

Big big thanks are due for Heiko who worked hard during the last few days before the contest to finish our new 4 x 6 ele LFA Yagi antenna group. So for the first time ever we were able to use 2 antenna groups in parallel (our good old trusty 2 x 8 ele DK7ZB being the other one). It really paid off to be able to beam into 2 different directions at the same time. We often had big smiles on our faces when getting called by people from those different directions at once knowing we would certainly have missed a few of them without that possibility. Of course we already made plans for further improvements. Hope to find some time during the winter to realize a few of our ideas. 😉

Bild7

Condx were quite good. Before the contest there were some tropo enhancements enabling the OK guys on the high hills to work into OH. Nothing overhere, though. Nevertheless condx seemed stable at least, not too much QSB and also some nice DX worked although all stations that are usually workable every time. But at least I had the impression it was easier this time … who knows, maybe still a little tropo enhancement after all. 😉

VHFsept2014

We had worked 300 QSOs after the first 8 hours. Of course you cannot apply simple math like 1/3 of the time thus take QSO number and triple it for the final results … this would be great, wouldn’t it? 🙂 No, of course not, but I really hoped we could do the 600 in total this time. Sorrily we didn’t, maybe next time. Not sure, will have to look it up again, but this might nevertheless be our best result points-wise so far. The average km/QSO should be an all time high, too. These were our most distant contacts:

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 DATE       TIME    CALLSIGN     LOCATOR     BAND   MODE       QRB
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07/09/2014  05:27   OH1ND        KPØØXL      2 m.   SSB        933
06/09/2014  16:54   G8T          JOØ1KJ      2 m.   SSB        928
06/09/2014  16:43   G8P          JOØ1QD      2 m.   SSB        904
07/09/2014  00:22   9A1N         JN85LI      2 m.   CW         898
07/09/2014  00:42   9A7W         JN85LI      2 m.   CW         898
07/09/2014  02:29   GØVHF/P      JOØ1PU      2 m.   CW         886
07/09/2014  00:48   S59DEM       JN75DS      2 m.   CW         830
06/09/2014  21:27   UT5W         KO2ØNC      2 m.   CW         829
07/09/2014  09:11   SK9ØZK       JP7ØTO      2 m.   SSB        825
06/09/2014  20:24   HB9GF        JN37WB      2 m.   SSB        821
06/09/2014  22:21   UW5Y         KN18OO      2 m.   CW         813
06/09/2014  23:56   S57Q         JN76PB      2 m.   CW         801
07/09/2014  06:02   SKØEN        JO99JX      2 m.   SSB        801
07/09/2014  06:07   SM4BDQ       JP8ØFG      2 m.   SSB        795
07/09/2014  05:35   LAØBY        JO59IX      2 m.   SSB        781
06/09/2014  21:43   ON4LDP       JO1ØUN      2 m.   CW         779
06/09/2014  22:56   UR7D         KN18JT      2 m.   CW         775
07/09/2014  00:10   S5ØC         JN76JG      2 m.   CW         775
06/09/2014  21:37   ON4KHG       JO1ØXO      2 m.   CW         761
06/09/2014  17:12   F8KID        JN38AT      2 m.   SSB        753
06/09/2014  20:29   S59R         JN76OM      2 m.   SSB        750
06/09/2014  17:10   S59P         JN86AO      2 m.   SSB        749
07/09/2014  04:58   HB9FAP       JN47PH      2 m.   SSB        745
07/09/2014  03:44   S59ABC       JN76TO      2 m.   CW         744
06/09/2014  23:36   S57M         JN76PO      2 m.   CW         741
07/09/2014  11:27   S56P         JN76PO      2 m.   SSB        741
07/09/2014  00:24   S51ZO        JN86DR      2 m.   CW         738
07/09/2014  08:28   LY2LE        KO24OQ      2 m.   SSB        737
07/09/2014  02:13   HG1Z         JN86KU      2 m.   CW         734
07/09/2014  13:27   PA3HFJ       JO11VL      2 m.   SSB        734
06/09/2014  21:54   OM3KDX       KN19DB      2 m.   CW         730
07/09/2014  05:50   SM5KWU       JO89IP      2 m.   SSB        730
06/09/2014  20:10   S57O         JN86DT      2 m.   SSB        729
06/09/2014  20:36   F6KQV/P      JN38OJ      2 m.   SSB        728
07/09/2014  09:26   PA5KM        JO11WM      2 m.   SSB        727
07/09/2014  00:34   S53O         JN86AT      2 m.   CW         726
07/09/2014  01:57   HA6W         KNØ8FB      2 m.   CW         724
07/09/2014  10:57   HB9CXK       JN47PM      2 m.   SSB        724
07/09/2014  01:07   HG6Z         JN97WV      2 m.   CW         716
06/09/2014  14:54   HA2U         JN87VH      2 m.   SSB        706
06/09/2014  15:14   DJ5MW        JN47WN      2 m.   SSB        701
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After all quite a successfull weekend again with very nice VHF DX and most importantly great people to spend one’s time with. 😉

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