Russian DX Contest

8Q7DV in Russian DX Contest 2005

The idea to go to Maldives for RDXC came into our minds in November 2004 immediately after CQWW CW in which we operated from Sun Island as 8Q7DV.

It was very tempting to come here again in March 2005 for 10 days that would allow us to participate not only in RDXC but also in WPX SSB on the weekend following Russian contest. Finally the team formed a month before the departure. It comprised of: UN9LW (aka UP0L), UN4L, UA9CLB, UA9CDV and me UA9CDC.

Literally 3 days before the contest I got a phone call from my old friend Victor, 9V1BH. He said he would like to join us to take part in the Russian contest. All the members of our team greeted the news. Victor is not only an excellent SSB operator but also many of us did not see him in person for more then 10 years

By the beginning of the contest we had the following antennas installed: 2 tribanders designed and manufactured by Willy, UA9BA especially for 8Q7DV (3el for 20, 3 for 15 and 4 for 10м) . One tribander was rotatable with G800 at 8 meters over the beach and set up only 2-3 meters from the water. Another one was fixed at 330 degrees at the height of about 11 meters

The distance between these two antennas was 200 meters that enabled us to simultaneously operate with 2 radio on the same band. We also two band vertical for 160/80 meters. Being 21 meter tall with trap and capacitive hat it was also originally designed by UA9BA. We have spent some time modifying this antenna before it started to behave itself. Being installed only 3 meters from salt water This antenna allowed us to work USA on 80meter band both SP and LP. On 160m it was also good enough to be heard in the USA let alone EU and JA. All of the above mentioned Dxing was done after the contest

During the contest it seemed a bit different... Other antennas were: quarter wave vertical for 40m set up in the ocean 3-4 meters away from the shore and multy band vertical AP8A.

The latter antenna had been used from 8Q7 many times before and we knew it would not let us down. Transceivers: IC775 (tks UA9DD), FT1000MP, FT897 (borrowed from RW6AN), ACOM2000, AL-80B, band pass filters by UA9AR, clever box that we named ”Who is the first” that did PTT lockout, so that we always had only one signal at a time. DELL laptops, plenty of cables, wires and ropes etc…. The total weight of all the equipment was close to 500 kg. Logger used was of course TRlog ver. 6.79 Only Trlog can more or less handle sequential serial numbers from several operating positions that was required by the contest rules.

In the beginning of the contest it has become clear that we are not loud enough for SSB. More or less good run could only be achieved on CW. Therefore Victor, 9V1BH had often do S & P for the multiplier instead of running stations on SSB as was originally planned.. We had to stop couple of times in order to reload laptops and equalize serial numbers. Primarily we concentrated on working Russian stations that give more points. We knew that we are too far from Russia and EU. Our chances to get as many multipliers on 80 and 160 as some of our competitors were slim. The only way to compensate for geographical disadvantage was to make more QSO on 15 and 10m where we had better propagation.

SSB on 80 turned out to be useless. All the attempts to run on 160 CW failed. At the same time S&P on this band was pretty productive. There were very few who could not hear us. Apparently we were short of some 6-10db for successful running but where do we get these 6db? Run on 80m CW was pretty decent thanks to full size vertical near salt water.

There were not enough ERP on 40 SSB. 6000-8000 км between 8Q7 and EU in the narrow and full of QRM 40m SSB sub band call for 4 over 4 stack to be competitive.. On 40m CW it did feel like we were pretty loud. It was amazing how good a simple aluminum stick 10 meters tall and set up in salt water can be.

The only SSB runs that we had were on 15 meters and for a short time on 10 meters. As a result 75% of all the QSO were made on cw.

24 hours passed very quickly. In general we felt that we have done our best Thanks to everybody who called us in the contest.

UA9CDC, UN9LW, UA9CLB, UA9CDV, UN4L

Results are in the table below.

QSO/MULT 8Q7DV RUSSIAN DX CONTEST 2005