Great operators, Great contest !
Largest H.F. contest. Best of the best yes sir !!! I ran YP0K callsing for A.R.R. club.
40 meters band was so crowded that many hams went sky high up till 7090 Khz.
Strong signals, strong intermodulation and the Force was not so great within IC7300.
Lucky me using some crystals ladder preselector otherwise could’nt make RUN mode.
My home made QRO stood safe after copper heatspreader patching, also 3 el. inverted vee antenna was great more or less where strong F/B ratio cost me precious time and QSO’s , got to build diode auto fast PWM switching ! Another big issue is antenna low BW while SWR went up to 2.2:1 over 7050 Khz but tampered QRO protection trimpots not to trigger unless 3:1
Not so many exotic stations like in previous editions , and some cyclic static noise disturbed my RX during second day. Also some EU stations were splattering big time, like 10 Khz wide and some chirping too. Next contest will record, observe and report to organizers this kinda problems like hey ! there is no joy pushing QRO from 1 zillion watts up to 2 zillions.
Felt sorry when contest ended but already thinking to next great one.
Run time 27 Hours, 99% RUN only. Scored 1671 QSO’s, 23 zones, 74 countries and 235613 points @ SOSB HP 40m Not-Assisted .
Unfortunately I got a severe indigestion so I had to stop at 00 UTC Sunday while USA station were blooming , 13 hours I’ve been knocked off but hey ! that was an experience too , next time will be more careful about what I eat during contest.
73’s , Gabriel
