CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB

Call: J49Z
Operator(s): I2WIJ, IK8UND, IK8HCG
Station: J49Z  @  SV9ANJ  qth

Class: M/S HP
QTH: Crete Island
Operating Time (hrs): 45

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:  114     9       51
   80:  311    15       73
   40:  715    23      101
   20: 1370    36      147
   15: 1179    34      126
   10: 2095    35      143
------------------------------
Total: 5784   152      641  Total Score = 7,317,804

Club: (1/3) Marconi Contest Club

Comments:

All in all a great contest, but we see room for improvements.
Also this year we were forced to silence by a numbers of power outages,
luckyly not due to storms, but mainly to Local Power Company maintenance (!)
and to power limitation of the house itself.
(but without the unpayable help of Manos, SV9ALJ, the qth-owner, this 
adventure wouldn't have never happened).

We had to run both our TL922 and AL80 at +- 500W the whole contest, 
but sometimes (too many) when tuning a bit longer the power went off 
and we had to restart!.
Moreover we had other Mr. Murphy related events: the main was that the
last year 3-ele tribander wouldn't tune on 20m (SWR >2), and the use of the
linear for the MULT station was out of discussion on 20, so we worked barefoot
150W with the radio-tuner. We managed some good ones, 
despite this: T88EA, ZK1MA are examples; yeah we are skilled!! :-)!! 
even if it was a real pain to hear so many mults and 
not being able to let them hear us.  :-( !!
(roughly at least 8/9 zones and 35/40 countries were lost)

The second day, may be too late, we decided to run on the beach tribander on 10
and 15, so being able to search for mults with the main antenna on 20, and
this surely affected (negatively) our main signal.

The antenna work was heavy in just two days and we didn't have the  right time
to rest before the contest start (we just finished the 40 m vertical 
in the dark on friday night). We paid this fact later (an improvement area).

We had great rates, especially on 10 meters that were wide open
both days, while 20 meters suffered a bit and closed very early 
on saturday and we never experienced the last year loud-signals.

Moreover EU was always present: it is not bad, in  principle, 
to always have a stream to work, but those endless DK, OK, and others,
lowered our point-per-qso figure, while surely covering DX signals, so we also
paid too much our southern-most position.

Out target was 10 Ml: missed, but we are already working for next year!.

J49Z
Kokkini Hani, Crete Island.

IC-756 Pro, TS950SDX
TL-922, AL80

10-15-20 Sommer XP507 @ 10mt
40 PKW rotary dipole @12mt and Fish-rod vertical on the beach
(what a great jod this antenna did!)
80-160 Inv Vee dipoles on a 14m high mast.

10-15-20 TH3 @ 5mt on the beach 

More info and pictures soon at  http://www.qsl.net/i2wij/j49z/j49z.html
Thanks to all who called and answered us!.

CU next year.

Bob, I2WIJ    on behalf of the 2002 J49Z (I2WIJ, IK8UND, IK8HCG) team

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
I2WIJ is the 1/3rd part of the Marconi Contest Club, 
the other two are free-lance contesters!!
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +