rhodes3

So I get up at 3am local and drive to Rhodes, starting the contest at 0230z, I check out the bands, nothing on 10m yet, but 20m is alive and kicking, so CQ CONTEST from SV5/G0HAS and an immediate response from DL2NBU, over the next 15 minutes I work only 3 more stations, this is going to be hard work, but all of a sudden things pick up, looks like someone has heard me in North America, 27 contacts in the next 15 minutes with the qso rate clocking at about 120q per hour........

So I continue at a reasonable qso rate for the next 8 hours and with 530 contacts under my belt things seem quite reasonable for a single op low power station, how wrong could I be, at 1200z I hit a brick wall, the qso rate drops the QRM is unbelievable and I am being swamped be VERY loud Europeans. It appears that I am just not being heard in the States because of the wall of high power European stations between Rhodes and North America, what do I do now ?

Mike (SV5BYR) arrives at the shack and encourages me to stay on 20m and 'fight for your frequency', but however much I tried I was just not getting the contacts, it was too early to tune and pounce for multipliers and with the antenna fixed to the north west, there was little I could do anyway unless I used the dipole.........checking on 10m it appeared wide open and there was still plenty of QRM free space..........the decision was made, I'll operate on 10m and forsake my 500 odd qso's on 20m, or at least give it a try and see what running rate I could achieve.

So onto ten metres, find a clear frequency and call cq, the next 15 minutes brings 40 qsos, , all european and in zones 14,15 and 16, which isn't surprising with the beam fixed north west, ths continues for the next 45 minutes and a further 70 contacts, at 1400z I get the first few North Amercian calls and as the band opens up, so the running rate continues for the next three hours, but by 1700z the band begins to close and back to Europeans only, at 1745z its all but dead so I retire with 1060 contacts in the log, equally split between 10m and 20m. 15 zones and 61 countries on 20 and 16 zones and 46 countries on 10m , its a close run thing, which band now?

On the hour drive back to Pefkos I thought about the 8 hours wasted on 20m and 530 qso, what could I have made if I'd stayed on 10m, what if t I could have turned the beam, I convinced myself that moving to 10m was the right thing to do, I couldn't compete with the other Europeans on 20m who were also beaming stateside with 100w and a single tribander, the callsign helped, but what was the point if nobody could work me under a wall of QRM, on 10m the beam was more efficient, the band was muchh bigger and I stood a chance of keeping my frequency IF I kept developing the pile ups. I arrived back at the hotel, went off to dinner with my wife and was soon asleep.

Day 2 was not as I had planned, we awoke late, Lynne decided she would come with me today and after a swift breakfast we arrived in Rhodes at 10.00am local, lucky for me this was 0700z and the band was not yet fully open, choosing a spot frquency of 28.455 we were off 180 contacts in the first hour !!! maybe the band was open earlier after all, the next hour 190, then 170..........I needed a rest I tuned around looking for mults and then continued working the pile up, giving breaks for any qrp or dx stations (much to the annoyance of some of the stations calling, who couldn't understand why I was doing this in a contest, well I suppose I'm just a nice guy) and continued tuning around. At the end of nearly eight hours operating I had logged a futher 1000 10m contacts and in total managed to work around 30 zones and 90 countries.

As a few of the club members arrived, Mike told me that I had probably got the best CQWW SSB score from the island for 10m, but we would have to wait and see how the logs turned out. I was encouraged by this and was even more keen to come back and do it again, bigger and better . I am a keen VHF contest operator here in the UK and have tried a few HF contests from home, I've operated from a few holiday islands and given mults and points away in contests before but had never experienced the consistent pile ups that appeared in the contest, it makes you appreciate just how good some of the top HF contesters must be.

However there is a certain feel good factor that with the generous assistance from the very friendly and helpfull amateurs on Rhodes, I have given a lot of people the opportunity to work SV5, had a very cheap and enjoyable holiday and into the bargain was going home with a suntan !

We stayed on at the club, swopping stories and talking about what next, Mike was very keen to arrange a 70cms or higher eme dx-expedition, so anybody reading this with a wish to do so, get in touch with Mike at [email protected]