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By Valeri Stefanov – LZ2CJ (
Wally)
After successful premiere of our contest team in WPX SSB 2000 we decided our next effort to be in WAE SSB 2000 Contest.
The dates for
WAE 2000 (9/10th of September) allowed us to combine our vacation
Berkin (TA3J) and Nilay’s (TA3YJ) QTH
is close to Europe and we would have the advantage of working Europeans on 80m and 40m
with simple antennas still having the chance for good multiplier on higher bands, too.
We started the planning for this one well
ahead ,but things kept changing all the time, so in fact there finally appeared to be
little planning left – Hi.
The members of the team at the start of the project were to be – TA3J, TA3YJ, TA3D, LZ1UQ, LZ2CJ, LZ2FI, LZ2FV and LZ2UU. Finally due to different reasons contest team this time ended up with following operators :
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LZ2FV - Ceco, LZ2HM - Andy , TA3J - Berkin and Wally - LZ2CJ.
Few months
before the contest me and Ceco obtained a 7 el LP monoband yagi for 15m from LZ2TW and
Ceco has to finish another 6 el. LP monoband yagi for 10m band. Due to transportation
restrictions we were not able to take the 15m yagi with us and Ceco due to business
commitments was not able to finish the 10m 6L yagi. Thus we finally decided to take a full
size 3 el. 10m yagi with us and to make a fixed 3 L Delta Loop antenna on 15m and 2 L
Delta Loop on 20m band. I was to take a 40m vertical with me,too. There was the 80m Delta
Loop for 80 m band already at TA3J QTH from WPX operation.
Then came the visas saga. In March we took
our visas for just few hours, but may be because this time we were going to Turkey
together with our families and for longer time we have had some problems with obtaining
the visas until just few days before our departure. Same happened with YM3LZ license for
this operation due to the fact that licenses now could be obtained only from Ankara
office.
Finally we have got our visas and the
license ( TNX the great efforts of TA3J) and first part of the group ( me - LZ2CJ and my
family ) arrived at hotel “Grand Efe” near Kusadasi on 29th of
August. We have had a nice quiet week at beautiful Turkish seaside with crystal clear sea
water and wonderful weather. This week fully elimina-ted the frustration we’ve
experienced while obtaining our visas. The rest – Ceco LZ2FV, his son - Todor and his
wife Svetla LZ2FI together with Andy – LZ2HM were to arrive on the afternoon of 7th
of September . On the same date (7.Sept.) I have had to present a lecture on dental
implants to my Turkish colleagues in Izmir. We returned with Berkin TA3J from Izmir to our
hotel around 18.00 hours and met with LZ2FV,LZ2FI and LZ2HM who have just arrived. The
almost 22 hours travel by bus for 2FV,2FI and 2HM has taken out most of their enthusiasm
and they were very tired. So were we with Berkin after a long day in Izmir.
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That’s
why we decided that TA3J will stay together with us in a hotel for that night and early in
the morning at 5.00 local time we ( TA3J,LZ2CJ, LZ2FV and LZ2HM) go to our contest QTH and start working on antennas.
We woke up at 5.00 and headed to
Turgutalp village at 1 200 m ASL near Manisa.
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After
stopping by in Izmir to take TS850S and home made amplifier from TA3D and some other stuff
from Berkin’s home we arrived at the mountain around 10.30 local time on 8th
of September. We started working on antennas almost immediately, but the schedule was to
be very tight. First we have had to remove the 160m Loop which
We went
inside the house and Berkin made a dinner for us plus some strong coffee.
Then Andy and
Ceco started preparing the running and multiplier stations – respectively TS850S plus
TA3D 800W amp and TS930S with TA3J 450W amp.
(While we
were moving the 800W amplifier inside the house from the car ,Ceco LZ2FV due to the dark
fell down and as evidenced later has broken his feet at two places. He has shown to be a
brave guy and withstand the pain during whole contest. Thanks God there was now
displacement of the fragments and healing went OK later on. )
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Afterwards my Siemens Laptop and Berkin’s PC were connected by LZ2HM in the net and around local midnight we were ready to go. Then the first crew ( LZ2CJ and LZ2FV)
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went to sleep
for about two hours and TA3J and LZ2HM kept staying awake till the start of the test
(03.00 local time).
Start was on 40m and was slow. We were
using the vertical antenna and most EU signals were weak and hard to copy. Using a
vertical first night in WAE was a mistake. 80m Delta Loop via the tuner worked much better
second night on 40m towards EU.
After 40minutes and about 60 QSO’s we went to 80 m with the hope to get a better run. After been able to make just 40 QSO’s for one hour on 80 we made a short jump on 40m again. Made 20 QSO’s on 40 and returned for 30 more Q’s on 80m to land finally on 20 m at 03.21 GMT for next 4 hours. During our operation on 20m after a sunrise Andy LZ2HM has tuned the 15m 3 el. Delta Loop antenna and we were ready to go on 15 m band at 07.21 GMT.
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We stayed on
15m and have got a good run until 10.15 GMT. After having 678 QSO’s in the log we
went to 10m band. The band was opened just for a while with heavy QSB and we were able to
make only 83 QSO’s for about one hour. At 11.17 GMT we went back on 15 meters. At
14.35 GMT we tried 20m but returned on 15 m
at 15.27. At 15.53 we tried 10m for 10 minutes and then went back on 15m. We stayed on 15m
until 17.18 GMT and after reaching the 1160 QSO’s mark returned on 20m band. Due to a
slow run on 14mhz band we decided to try 40m again at 18.12 GMT. This time we were wise
enough and used the 80m Delta Loop via the tuner for 40m antenna instead of the vertical
we have erected . Delta Loop was much better for Europe. EU signals were louder and we
have been heard better by Europeans. We stayed on 40m for about almost two hours, tried a
short jump to 80m and went back on 20m at 20.26 GMT. Stayed there until 21.57 and have
gone on 40m afterwards. 40m was good and we maintained the run there almost until midnight
(23.29 GMT). Then we QSYed to 80m and the first 24 hours of the contest finished there
with 1490 QSO’s at 00.01 GMT. We kept jumping between 80 and 40m until 04.00 GMT and
then went to 20m again. After two hours around 06.00 Z the 15m opened and the run was
continued there for one hour and a half. Then we decided to try 10m again and stayed on
this one for another two and a half hours. During whole second day we were jumping from
band to band trying to
When the end
came we’ve found that in spite of low activity and poor conditions on 10m band we
made 2511 QSO’s , have given out 2250
QTC’s and worked 222 countries on 5 bands( equal to multiplier of 570 ).
This gave us a final score of 2 713 770 points. Not too bad for a simple set up !
And we
finally placed 2nd in the World and No.1 in Asia !!!
See you in
the next one.
YM3LZ crew
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