ABOVE: The ZL6QH rhombic antenna, looking towards the short path to Asia and Europe
Operator(s): ZL1AZE ZL2AGY ZL1TM ZL1BYZ
Class: M/2 HP
Operating Time (hrs): 47.5
Band QSOs
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160: 0
80: 71
40: 1056
20: 1496
15: 732
10: 27
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Total: 3382 Prefixes = 937 Total Score = 12,307,495
Our raw score is around 1 million less than what we achieved in 2005. A comparison of the logs shows that the shortfall was mainly due to fewer QSOs being logged on 40M, suggesting that conditions on this band were not as good as last year. 10M conditions were also down, with only a handful of USA stations making it into the log this year.
We ended up starting the contest 20 minutes late, due to the need to make some last minute repairs to the antenna farm. One of the wires for the Europe long path vee beam was on the ground, along with broken feed lines to the rhombic and Europe short path vee beams. The repair work was hampered by driving wind and rain - everyone got thoroughly soaked and ZL1AZE's 4WD car also found itself stranded in a sea of mud!
A new wide spaced 5-element yagi for the 20M short path to North America was erected shortly before the contest. This antenna proved to be a strong performer and was noticeably better than the vee beam for this path.
Equipment used:
Station A - FT1000MP Field + Drake L7
Station B - FT1000MP + Ameritron AL80A
Logging Software - Writelog 1059
Antennas used:
80M Quarter wave vertical
80M sloping dipole to North America
Vee beams (ALL bands) for short and long paths to North America and Europe
Rhombic (ALL bands) for short and long paths to Europe
5 element 20M yagis for long path to Europe and short path to North America
6 element 10M yagis for short paths to Europe and North America
Please see www.zl6qh.com for more information about the station.
Note that we may not be QRV in this contest next year. It is likely that we will have to dismantle the ZL6QH station in early 2007 to make way for the building of a wind farm. We are working on plans to build a bigger and louder ZL6QH station, so we are hoping to be back in the future.
Thanks to everyone for the QSOs, the Wellington Amateur Radio Club for the use of the ZL6QH station, and CQ Magazine for another fun contest.
ABOVE: Andrei ZL1TM
ABOVE: Brian ZL1AZE
ABOVE: John ZL1BYZ
ABOVE: Tony ZL2AGY