This year, I had more time available to spend on Aruba, as I am now in the passive phase of an Early Retirement Programme. So I decided to stay on the island for a bit more than two weeks.
Travel to Aruba was a bit challenging this time. Just a week earlier, there had been a U.S. military action against Venezuela, which caused a temporary closure of Caribbean airspace, and there was a non‑negligible risk that this might happen again. In addition, Europe was experiencing severe winter weather with heavy snow and ice, causing major delays at Amsterdam and other European airports.
Fortunately, on the day of my departure there was a good weather window. I was able to reach the airport by car without any problems, and my flights were on time.
This year, I brought another 55‑ft pole and some additional small equipment, and I was curious whether I would get through customs without issues. I was well prepared and had a pro forma invoice ready, but you never know what might happen.
After arriving in Aruba, I was told that my cardboard box with the pole was classified as bulky baggage and that I had to pick it up at customs. When I arrived there, I saw an officer already holding my box in his hands. After I explained that it contained a large pole for catching big fish, he let me pass without further questions or inspection of the box or my other luggage.
This year, I had not booked a rental car, as the rental fee for the cheapest car was about 60–70 EUR per day, which I considered unreasonably high. So I took a taxi to the cottage, and the next morning I received an electric rental bike I had ordered in advance. For short distances, the bike is a very economical option and, on top of that, good for fitness. Only the road surface toward Santa Cruz is horrible - I constantly felt the bike might fall apart.
Once I arrived at the station and connected all cables and antennas, everything worked fine.
Nex day I started my antenna work. I had a “warm” welcome by the neighbours’ dogs. Behind the fence they were continuously barking, trying to penetrate the gaps in the fence. Normally they should remember me from last year save their power for more important things.
The plan was to erect an additional 5/8 vertical for 30 m using the new 55‑ft pole. I found a suitable spot at the far end of the garden area. Luckily, I was able to pile the aluminium support angle into the ground on my own using a thick wooden block. Normally this requires a sledgehammer and is very exhausting. I then strapped the retracted pole to the angle.
Next, I had to determine the guying tie‑off points and install the metal anchors. For one of the points, I first had to remove a larger area of thorny vegetation.
The following step was preparing the guy lines and attaching them to the guy belts and anchors. After that, I fixed the vertical antenna wire to the pole and extended the segments one by one. While extending the pole, the guy ropes of course needed to be adjusted accordingly, and this process takes some time when working alone. Then the 20 radials had to be laid out. Fortunately, for the 30 m antenna the radials were not very long. But because the grass was quite high, it was difficult to place them close to the ground.
Finally, I added a coax connector and the common‑mode choke and laid the long coax line to the shack. I first used the antenna as a ¼‑wave for 60 m, which worked without any problems. After converting it to a 5/8‑wave for 30 m, the SWR surprisingly did not fit right from the start. After some testing, I discovered that the 5/8 extension coil was causing parasitic resonances. By increasing the spacing between the windings, I was able to resolve the issue and achieve a reasonable SWR. In the end, this antenna worked very well too.

While I was doing my testing work, I was sitting at the 55‑ft pole, fully focused on reading the VNA. Suddenly, barking started right behind me, and I saw two of the neighbor’s dogs only about three feet away without any fence between us. That situation definitely scared me a bit, but what could I do? There was no chance to escape, and my thought was: if they really wanted to attack me, they would have done so already. So I simply ignored them and continued my work. Eventually, they went away.
In parallel, I prepared the 85‑ft pole for the 160 m vertical at its original location. But since this antenna is much larger and heavier, I needed additional support to complete the mechanical setup. Over the weekend, JP and Cris helped me erect the pole. It took quite some time to replace a few dysfunctional rope tensioners, prevent the guying ropes from tangling, and adjust the ropes as the segments were extended. We worked hard until sunset and finally completed the mechanical installation. Many thanks to JP and Cris!
A big surprise was the invitation for JP and Cris for dinner on Monday. Normally the invitation should have come from me, but JP and Cris insisted to invite me. We then had a very nice dinner at Marina Pirata Restaurant. I really love this restaurant with the tables directly at the sea. THX!
Additionally, I installed the temporary VK/ZL beverage again, starting from the junk car in the southwest direction. No issues here.
The next day, I matched the antenna electrically. Surprisingly, the R/X characteristics were very different from last time, but after some trial and error I found a solution by adjusting the coil spacing and the length of the wire. During the night, I performed some tests and comparisons with the existing vertical C‑dipole. EU stations reported that the vertical had a slight advantage compared to the C‑dipole. I received similar results when comparing RBN reports from U.S. stations. That made me optimistic.
But there was another unexpected problem. When I arrived, I noticed that one guying rope of the 80/40m fan diploe had loosened over time. That was easy to fix. A few days later - after a stormy night – another I saw that one dipole leg was hanging loose. It appeared that the leg wire had broken, and the pole was swaying in the wind, with the top segments bending under the load of the dipoles. As a first action, I lowered the pole into a safe position.
A few days later, I tried to fix the issue. At first, I was unable to find the other end of the wire, but eventually I discovered that the wire or the insulator must somehow have come loose from the end insulator or the guying rope. I added a new plastic insulator and replaced the rope connections to the vegetation with rugged metal anchors. Hopefully, this will help the fan dipole withstand the Aruba winds in the long term.
Another task was to inspect the beverages. Fortunately, this year I did not encounter any dogs in the Cunuco, and all beverages were basically in good condition. However, I still had plenty of work freeing the wires from fallen trees and branches and keeping the walking path as clear as possible. When the job was almost finished, I found two spots where the beverage wire was heavily corroded and some of the stranded sub‑wires had already torn. These were obvious candidates to fail very soon.
So I decided to replace part of the wire with a new section and splice it to the existing wire. To ensure a reliable splice, I soldered the connections using the propane torch.
Propagation conditions this year were generally disappointing. In previous years, I had large JA pileups on the high bands every evening. This year, I worked only a few of them. Additionally, there was strong background noise, especially on the high bands. It’s not entirely clear whether this was local noise, but since the noise followed QSB, it seems to have been something coming via the band. The low bands were mostly very poor as well.
There was just one exceptional day: January 20th. 40 m and 80 m were not good that morning, too, and I was even considering skipping my daily 160 m test with JA at 10:45. But then - almost magically - one JA after another appeared on 160 m. Thirteen JA stations in fifteen minutes. That was fantastic. On all other days, I worked no JA at all on 160 m.
At least the high bands to EU and the US worked well, so this year I had to focus on the easier directions. And 30/40/60 m were mostly fine too.
Aside from that one day, the low bands were poor, and I became rather pessimistic about the upcoming CQ160.
But the start of CQ160 was better than expected. The U.S. was loud early and easy to work. I used the 85‑ft pole and had a good feeling. EU came in around 02z - not too many stations, but acceptable. Then, suddenly, after approximately 04:30z, conditions dropped sharply and never recovered. The EU sunrise peak was completely missing. And of course, when no EU stations are audible, U.S. stations tend to close down as well. That was frustrating. The only highlights were VK2GR and DU7ET later at my sunrise.
I thought the second night could only be better. Wrong, it was even worse. Right from the beginning, I had difficulties being heard in the U.S., and almost no EU was present. After 04:30z a few EU signals became audible, but overall it was a very boring and frustrating night. A total of 142 QSOs on the second night says it all. Of course, all stations were affected to some degree, but in such a scenario being in the Caribbean is not a real advantage. Congratulations to PJ2T (SO), who scored slightly better than me.
In total, I ended with 652,212 points (611 Q, 53 DXCC, 55 S/P). According to 3830, that puts me at #4 World SO(A). Places 3 and 4 are very close, so there is still a chance to move up one position after log checking.
After the contest, I had to dismantle both verticals and the beverage. Surprisingly difficult was spooling the long coax cables of the verticals to a ring. That much coax is very heavy, bulky, and hard to grip in a way that allows an even roll.
On Monday evening, I invited JP and Cris to the usual post‑contest dinner. This year I chose the Yemanja Woodfire Grill in Oranjestad. The food truly delicious - a clear recommendation!
On Wednesday the Jan, 28th afternoon, I left the cottage with some more than 22,222 QSOs in the log. Considering the generally poor conditions, that seems like a solid result. This year, for the first time, I focused a bit more on SSB. Working the U.S. from P4 in SSB is real fun, sometimes with rates over 300 Q/min. It felt like being in a contest. The P4 demand should be significantly reduced now.
It was once again a great stay on Aruba. John & Andy, many thanks for letting me stay in your cottage and use your excellent equipment. Ed, thanks for providing your nice KPA1500 and preparing the headset for me.

Mathias DL4MM