P40L-P49Y Contest Summary Information

This year I had the idea to participate in the Worked All Europe DX Contest from the DX side. P4 is a strong multiplier and hasn’t been active in this contest for many years. It’s a demanding and enjoyable CW contest, especially with the unique QTC traffic, and a great opportunity to work many of my German and European contest friends. Since the P40L station performs extremely well - especially on the low bands - and because the contest gives higher weight to multipliers on 80 and 40 meters than on 20/15/10, there was a good chance for a very competitive result.

Of course, there’s no realistic chance against stations in North Africa or Western Asia, but WAEDC awards plaques for each continental winner. So my goal was to win South America.

Because I didn’t want to spend too much time on the trip, I arrived Thursday night before the contest. The flight, as usual with KLM, was smooth and on time. No issues at customs. Since Cris was on vacation this year, her sister had prepared everything.

This year I brought an Intel NUC mini-computer along with a portable 18" QHD display and my own keyboard and mouse (although I eventually used the existing keyboard to get more familiar with the US layout). The advantage is that the NUC is fully customized for me: all logging, administration, and other software with my credentials and settings is installed, and all data automatically synchronizes via OneDrive with my laptop and home PC. The QHD screen provides a high resolution (2560×1440), allowing more information on one display and showing full cluster messages of my call, and I could position the portable screen slightly lower for a more ergonomic viewing angle. I used the existing Full HD monitor as a second screen for propagation visualization, and my laptop for RBN monitoring.

I hope that next year I can use the NUC completely “plug and play.” I stored the screen in the small sleeping room near the old keyboards. John, Andy, and Ed - feel free to use it for your activities if you like.

Since WAEDC does not include the 160-meter band, I could normally use the station “turn-key.” However, because the existing 80-meter inverted-V antenna is optimized for the US, I had the idea to use my 85-ft pole and adjust it to quarter-wave length for 80 m.

I started early Friday morning to install the vertical, but an unexpected issue appeared. The neighbor’s dogs were running in the backyard behind the cottage, and after I opened the gate they barked heavily and made a very strong impression that they did not want me there. I tried to make some noise to convince them to leave the backyard, but no chance. I realized it was probably wise not to mess with the dogs.

So I decided to stop for the moment and do something else. After a while of excited barking, the neighbor’s son came, opened the fence door, and called the dogs back to their home. We greeted each other in a friendly way, so luckily I could continue.

Then the next problem occurred: I discovered that one of the pole anchors - the one close to the neighbor’s fence - no longer existed. Well, let me add a new one. But the soil was extremely dry, and drilling the anchor into the ground was difficult. Very quickly the most aggressive dog detected me again, came close to the fence at the anchor location, barked excitedly, and even tried to push through the fence. OK, I stopped again, and after he disappeared, I continued.

When I bent over the anchor to drill further, I was completely shocked: without me noticing, the dog had run at full speed toward the fence and tried to jump through it. Of course the gap was too small, but the force of the jump bent the fence heavily, and his mouth was literally just a few inches away from me. Wow - survived! 😊 After all my visits over the years, the dogs should know me by now, and we really should be friends.

The remaining work went without major issues. Since the pole needed to be only about 62 ft, raising the segments was manageable for a single person. The complete job - including the new anchor, 16 radials of 60 ft each, adjusting the guy lines, pulling the coax to the shack, and matching - took me roughly four hours.

Matching required only a small correction of the wire lengths, and I measured an impedance of 40 Ω, which indicates rather low earth losses, as the ideal theoretical resistance is 37 Ω. Except for a common-mode choke, no additional components were necessary to connect the antenna.

Unfortunately, I had no opportunity to compare the vertical with the inverted-V before the contest, but I had a very good feeling and used it in the contest without further checks.

My original plan was to make a comparison on Monday night, but later I had the idea to modify the antenna for 30 m during my break time on Sunday - and unfortunately forgot my original plan.

After finishing the vertical, I walked along the EU beverage for an inspection, but found nothing - just cut some grown vegetation. Once the work was done, I spent an hour at nearby Mango Halto beach, and later in the afternoon I took some sleep to prepare for the contest.

The first day of the contest was excellent. I started with a good opening on 20 m, and after the first small gap in callers I QSYed to 40 m and later for a short time to 80 m. Then I went back to 20 m and repeated this cycle throughout the night.

20 m and 40 m produced similar rates, and surprisingly even 80 m delivered good QSOs and mults during each run. The vertical appeared to run fine. The 80 m openings were mostly in the middle of the night; there was no sunrise peak. Interestingly, even 15 m was slightly open during the night.

After sunrise and the closure of 40 m, I worked some 20 m and then took a few hours of break.

On the first day, 15 m was open with good rates, but 10 m was dead to EU (as I feared). I regularly checked for a 10 m opening, but nothing happened. Around 14:30 UTC, when I quickly scanned the band, I heard VE1RSM working an EU station - and surprisingly even some dits of the EU station - the first very weak sign of EU. I decided to call CQ, heard a very weak signal calling, and then suddenly the signals rose dramatically. Within seconds I had an incredible pileup from all the big guns. That was real fun! And the pileup lasted quite a while. After 10 m and 15 m closed, I had some good runs on 20 m late in the evening.

During the second night, 20 m was not as good as the day before, so I focused on 40 m and 80 m. At least 80 m was better than I expected for August. After sunrise I worked some 20 m, but 15 m and 10 m were not open. So I took another long break, hoping that 15/10 would open later. But even at 12:00 UTC there was almost no opening to EU - not even on 15 m! Every EU QSO on 15 m was a fight, and again no 10 m opening at 14:30. And 20 m, of course, was no real alternative. By our local sunset, 15 m was very poor, with only slight improvement afterwards and a few 10 m QSOs.

After 21:00 UTC, 15 m closed, and again only very few QSOs on 20 m and 40 m. Throughout the daylight hours I had extremely low rates, which was frustrating after the great first day. Between day two at 06:30 UTC and the end, I made only 250 QSOs - that says it all.

Considering the very poor second day, the total result of 1846 QSOs seems quite good, but FY5KE was the benchmark for me, as he was very active in the contest. FY5KE normally has slightly better skip toward EU, but we may have some advantage in low-band receiving.

After the contest, John told me that FY5KE had not worked 10 m, so I analyzed the RBN spots. He basically operated full time, but from 23:05 to 09:30 he had a long break (longer than the mandatory Single-Op break time span), and he actually did not work 10 m at all. It is unclear whether his 10 m equipment was broken or he simply missed the rather short openings. For whatever reason, this year FY5KE did not post any results on 3830 and gave no explanation for the lack of 10 m activity.

Eventually I saw his and the other results on the WAEDC raw-score page. He finished with 1.16 M. So the SA plaque is safe for me, and I’m satisfied.

My 1.77 M was good enough for #4 World. P3X is the perfect location for WAEDC and with 2.5 M is out of my range. Bud, AA3B, was surprisingly #2 World with 1.89 M - but of course he is an extremely experienced and well-equipped contester. Congrats to him! UP4L took #3 with 1.88 M, very close behind Bud. The distance from my place to #3 or #2 is small, but certainly large enough to survive log checking. Ahead of FY5KE was KP2M with 1.24 M. Anyway, I’m happy with my score and glad to get the SA plaque.

On Monday after the contest I dismounted the vertical, removed the radials and the feedline, and tidied up everything. The neighbor’s dogs were rather quiet that day and let me do my job.

Around noon I again spent a short time at the beach and did some casual QSOs by my departure. I then switched off and disconnected all equipment and antennas, locked everything, and prepared the station for a long period of non-use. Thankfully Mariana drove me to the airport, as I had again rented an e-bike instead of a car. Thanks to Mariana - she did a great job!

And thanks also to John and Andy for allowing me to use your superb station again! WAEDC CW was a great experience!

With my Priority Pass I was able to relax in the airport lounge and then had a good flight home. Just one exception: in the middle of the night, while I was almost asleep, I felt some rather rough vibrations. I was not buckled and checked whether the “buckles-up” sign was lit, but it was off. OK, so I tried to continue sleeping. Shortly thereafter there was a strong drop, and for half a second I felt zero gravity. Luckily, I was able to grab the armrest of my seat to avoid lifting my body up. Behind me there were loud screams. Fortunately, no one was injured, and the captain later apologized for any inconvenience caused by this unforeseen event. At that moment I remembered the usual announcement: “Turbulences may occur at any time - buckle up for the entire flight.” The remaining flight was smooth, and I arrived home safely the next day.