Contesting and DX'ing in South Africa


 

Contesting and DX'ing from South Africa is very different from doing it from one of the "main" contesting areas of the world like the USA, Europe or Japan!

Here we are away from the main centers of activity, not always a bad thing, at least we have lower levels of QRM, but being of the main beam headings between the main centers means that we are often on the side of the beam for most contacts and thus it is not so easy to break into a pileup or hold onto 'your' cq'ing frequency. Coupled with this is the fact that we are only allowed a maximum of 400w PEP, also not helping to have a big signal in the rest of the world.

Many of our top contesters and DX'ers ignore the 400w PEP limit, sometimes even exceeding the 1.5kw USA limit, this is not exactly fair towards those of us who try to stay legal. Often these hams will just laugh at you when you mention the limit and they will tell you that 'little pistols' should not try to play with the 'big boys'. A very sad state of affairs! Update: We are now allowed to run 1KW, I have been committed to QRP only since 2014 so this has no effect on me!
 
Our local government department who control amateur radio - ICASA, are not really interested (they also don't have the time or people) in controlling what is happening, it is also not a great idea to run to them every time as we are supposed to be 'self policing' and we do not want them to think that we are 'bad boys'. They might just decide to really give us a hard time.....

In ZS land we are very fortunate with regular TEP propagation to Africa, Europe and Asia, this often starts with an opening into the Mediterranean (We have all worked 100's of Italian stations!) which then extends into Africa, northern Europe and Asia. We normally have two periods of TEP during the year, one centered around April and one around September. These openings has allowed me, in 6 years including a solar minimum, to work 108 countries on 6m. This took a lot of dedication and many hours listening to a dead band. I used to spend up to 10 hours a day listening, including having a station setup at the office, these days my time is a lot more limited but it was fun! I have worked 108 DXCC entities on 6m in 6 years and some of our more active local's  like Hal - ZS6WB, Paul - ZS6NK and Ivo - ZS6AXT have all work more than 100 DXCC entities with Hal leading (as far as I know) on more than 140. There are also quite a few other locals who are close to the magic 100. BTW, Hal - ZS6WB, is the person who really helped me when I started out on 6m with advice, antennas etc., THANKS HAL!

On the HF DX side I have had great help and encouragement from Chris - ZS6EZ, the printing on my new HF license was not even dry (or is that cold?) before he took me along on a DX'pedition to Swaziland (3DA). I will never forget the excitement as we set up the station and Chris gave the first CQ. The resulting pile-up was amazing.... After working a string of stations he calmly handed me the microphone and walked off, talk about jumping in the deep-end!  Well, I survived and after a while it really became fun. I think the other guys had a problem taking the microphone from me after that!

Apart from the low QRM, it is also great to be a multiplier for most people in contests and a slightly rarer country in DX pile-ups. After breaking a pile-up I often get a special thank you from the other station, that often makes it worthwhile to spend lots of time trying to make a contact with a station that often is not worth that many points to us. It is also great to note that more and more contesting and DX stations will greet you by name in the heat of a contest or a pile-up!

It is also easy to get to an even rarer country like A2, V5, 7P8, 3DA or C9 from here with a few hours drive needed. From those locations you can really get huge pile-ups. It is often surprising how big a pile-up a ZS station can generate, you would think with 5000 hams (ok, less than 2500 active and only about 100 active on HF) South Africa would not be that scarce! It is great to give a CQ call and work a few stations, once you are spotted on the DX-cluster the pile-up can grow to huge proportions, great fun!

Since 2002 I have operated from my new QTH for the SSB and CW CQWW contests as well as a CW QRP entry in the ARRL 10m contest. A QRP entry in the WPX SSB contest netted more than 1000 contacts and was great fun! The location of this QTH is far better as far as amateur radio is concerned compared to the old one. The old one was on a South facing slope of a hill, with most DX being north it was not so great !, it did make for some amazing "long path" signals coming in on 6m over the years !, maybe the hill acted as a huge reflector :-)! The new QTH is on a north facing slope, also quite a bit higher than the old one (about 1490m ASL.) with great take-off paths north, east and west with only south slightly obscured. This combined with lots of space for antennas and a 10m x 4.5m shack things will be a lot better. (I promise the location of the QTH had nothing to do with my choice, I normally look for a new QTH carrying a GPS hi :-). A recent addition of a Hy-Gain 343 6 element 6m yagi on a 7,5m boom has really helped to bring in those weak signals for Europe, I can now hopefully hear everything that the local "big-guns" can hear.

Last year I competed in the SSB leg of the CQ WW DX contest but it was mostly to give away points and look for some new band-countries, this was a "hit and pounce" operation. I often try to keep my number of contacts and multipliers equal for this kind of operation, it does not result in large scores but is great fun and often adds to the DXCC totals !. I have made a bigger effort for the CW leg with a QRP 15m entry, you can read the report on both the CQ WW contests here. The new QTH along with a new, more efficient antenna for 10/15/20m has made a huge difference as I can now work stations with QRP that I could not work in the past with 400w!

Hope to see you in the next pile-up or contest, if someone should need ZS on any band or mode feel free to contact me to arrange a contact !.

Please also read the Comments on 6m operating habits and recommended code of practice.

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