Issue 04 - Special July 15

CQWW CW 2014 Montserrat A Diary by Carsten G0SYP It all started late in 2013 when Dave G3NKC and Martin, G4XUM held a talk at SRS about their recent DXpeditions. Among other places they had been to Montserrat before, operating the CQWW SSB 2012 from there. After the talk they mentioned they were going there again, this time for the CW part of the contest in November. I couldn’t resist asking if they needed another operator. As it turned out they were only 3 people so far, so there was another place on the team. After checking with Sarah I was able to commit; she was going to go to New York with friends at the same time.

Early in the planning process it became clear that Steve G3VMW would need to cancel. To my surprise, Dave came up with my friend Uli, DM5EE (ex DL2HBX) from near Hannover as a replacement. Dave knows Uli from work as they are both working for the Volkswagen group and have met in Wolfsburg several times.

With the team fixed, planning commenced. There are no direct flights to Montserrat from Europe; you have to fly to Antigua and then take a local flight or the ferry to Montserrat. Because there was no good connection we decided to stay a night on Antigua and take the early flight to Montserrat.

We flew out from Manchester to Heathrow early Tuesday morning before the contest. Then we took the coach to Gatwick where we met up with Uli and boarded the plane to Antigua. After an uneventful 8 hours we landed at 4 in the afternoon local time.

On Antigua we stayed in the same pension that Dave and Martin had used the last time, next to the Airport. After getting changed and a couple of beers on the veranda we headed out with a taxi to find somewhere to have tea. The taxi driver tried 2 restaurants but they were both closed. This was obviously not high season. Third time lucky though, we ended up in a nice place right on the beach. Sitting outside was a very nice change from the wintry temperatures in the UK. We had great sea food which added to the atmosphere.

The next morning we had to get up early to be on time for the first flight to Montserrat. We had a quick breakfast at the airport and then went to check in. It turned out the nice man at the counter was born on exactly the same day as I. That was fortunate because I did not have to play for excess baggage event though I was over the limit. The same guy later drove us to the plane in a golf caddy.

The plane was full with us 4 and a couple that was doing a day trip plus the pilot. The flight time was only about 20 minutes.

Our host David picked us up from the airport and helped us get a temporary driving license and rental car. With two cars it was easy to get all the luggage to Gingerbread Hill, our home for the next week. After settling in our rooms we started getting antennas out of storage to get on the air as soon as possible. Soon things started going less smoothly.

The mast at the side of the house could be extended with an electric winch operated by a phase switch in the 110V mains line. The switch did not work on our first try and blew the mains fuse, so we took it apart. The plastic block holding the switching mechanism had already been repaired with a cable tie. We tried cleaning the contacts and fixing more cable ties but had to give up in the end.

The plastic fell apart on us. Without an alternative switch available, we sourced a chock block from David and mimicked the switch using wire bridges. To stop the winch we pulled the plug from the

wall socket and to change directions we unscrewed and swapped two wire bridges. Don’t try this at home!

In the afternoon we ventured to a nearby supermarket to get some food and drink for the coming days. On the way back we stopped at the MICA, the telecom authority of Montserrat to pick up our licences. Monica Blake, the secretary, welcomed us and handed us each our personal licence documents. She showed us that she could see our antennas from her office window. We also noticed a mouse pad and jug sponsored by the Frankford Radio Club on her desk.

It was now late in the afternoon so we put up a dipole for 30m and one station. Then it was time to enjoy the home made pizza we bought and some Carib beers. The station was then activated for a while in turns until bed time and again early in the morning.

With the winch fixed, after breakfast we looked at preparing the rotator and fixing a pole. Turned out it wasn’t turning. Well, it was - but just because the rotator wasn’t fixed to the mast. Upon further inspection we saw that the cable wasn’t properly fixed neither. It took us most of the day with rerunning the rotator cable, dismantling the rotator etc. to find the dodgy connections both on the cable and on the rotator terminals. We fixed the terminals and created a wiring diagram that we left with the documentation on site. We also tested the control boxes that were on site and found that both were not fully working. Luckily Uli brought a rotator controller for HAM IV and similar models, he really saved us there. All the testing and running up and down to the roof terrace cost us most of Thursday and again it was beer o’clock. This meant we now only had Friday for the antennas.

After the usual breakfast of cereals and toast everybody was motivated to get everything finished for the contest. We started with the 2el Yagi for 40m that was to go to the top. Everything went together well after we figured out the markings on the elements. Second was the TH6 a few feet below. Again it took some effort to understand the marking on the elements and after putting them on wrong the first time, we finally got it all working and resonating. Before the mast could go up into its final position, the dipoles for 80 and 160 had to be laid out. One side was easy, just across the lawn into a tree. The other side had to go over some trees and over the path leading to the house with enough clearance for a digger to pass. Luckily we had some fibreglass mast elements we could use. We also used the 30m Dipole as a listening antenna for the CW Skimmer. The last antenna to go up was a small 3el Yagi fixed to the US on a short pole just above the roof terrace. In the end we never used it in the contest because signals on the TH6 were always louder even when pointing to Europe.

The afternoon was spent setting up the stations. We brought Dave and Martin's K3s, a set of Dunestar band pass filters as well as high power filters and a triplexer for 20/15/10m by 4O3A. There was an Ameritron AL-80A and a Dentron Clipperton amplifier available at the station. All cables were clearly marked, so there would not be any confusion. The procedure for band changes was to unplug the Dunestar band pass filter and return it to the filter bank and unplug the station coax and plug it to the new antenna or triplexer input. Then take out the new band’s filter and deploy it, then tune the amplifier and you are ready to go. This way transmitting with power on the same band as the other station was not possible. We also had 3 laptops that were linked on the house wireless network which also provided internet access for the DX Cluster and Reverse Beacon Network.

With the stations all set up we had our tea and some rest until the contest would start at 8pm local time. We were entering the Multi/2 category, where two stations are allowed to run only limited by the number of band changes per hour.

The teams had been made up before we left. Martin and Uli were going to do the first shift and Dave and I were going to take over at midnight (0400z). We would then have 4 hour shifts with the same teams all through the contest until Sunday night. Dave and I had a nap and when we came back the guys had racked up over 1100 QSOs on 40 and 20m. We continued there and I changed to 80m after a while to catch the sunrise over Europe. At the end of the shift we had another 1000 QSOs. On the first day it basically went on like this over all the bands, with slightly higher rates when 10 and 15 were both open. The pile ups were fierce at times but usually well behaved. I found the evening openings to Japan most difficult with tens of stations calling simultaneously just above the band noise and with similar call signs. I really needed the break after 4 hours. By the end of day 1 we had about 6700 contacts in the log. Day two was a little slower but not much. We also concentrated more on working multipliers on the second VFO. Despite our relatively low power this worked very well and we could increase our multiplier total considerably. In the end we reached more than 12000 QSOs (including dupes).

We celebrated the achievement with a curry we had ordered at the local Indian supermarket cum takeaway and El Presidente beers. Despite being tired we had a great night analysing our result and exchanging stories. We also kept checking Facebook and the relevant reflectors for any score updates until after midnight. We were especially happy to have beaten Paul Gentry, K9PG's group as NP4Z from Puerto Rico who put in a big effort with lots of manpower and aluminium.

On Monday we had to take down all the antennas in the morning. Funny how it always only takes a few hours to dismantle what it took days to build. It all went smoothly and we were finished by lunch time. We finally had time to do some sightseeing. We went to the volcano observatory and watched a film about the build-up to the eruption that buried the capital Plymouth and the airport in several metres of mud in July 1995. This eruption and some that followed later in the 90's left the south of the island, the "Exclusion Zone" uninhabitable and unsafe.

Because the current volcano activity level was low we could get next to the zone next to the Exclusion zone with views over Plymouth and the mud. We also visited the abandoned AIR Studios, founded in 1979 by Beatles producer George Martin. Unfortunately it was all fenced off, so we could not see much. We ended the sightseeing trip with taking the long way to the supermarket to stock up for the last night.

Our farewell dinner consisted of leftovers from the previous days. Again we talked about the results and where it got us along with frequent check-ups on the internet with more and more claimed scores coming in. As usual it ended with the typical question "Where do we go next?"

Of course we couldn't get off the radios, so we quickly assembled a 3 element Yagi for 6m to try for a sked with Remi, FK8CP in New Caledonia via TEP. We couldn’t hear Remi in the end but Martin worked a string of South Americans around 10pm local time and Uli manned the HF station using the dipole we left up.

The next morning we had time after breakfast to pack our stuff. We had to leave at 10.30h to get to the airport. Again there was a couple on a day trip sharing the plane back to Antigua with us. We then had several hours to kill at Antigua airport until our flight to Gatwick in the afternoon.

Considerable time was spent in the souvenir shops and some items purchased as well. The flight was uneventful and we landed in Gatwick around 5 in the morning on the Wednesday. We had to wait for the coach back to Heathrow in the freezing cold for about half an hour. At Heathrow we left Uli for his flight to Hamburg and after breakfast in the BA lounge and a short flight landed back in

Manchester at 9am. For me it was a short taxi ride home while Dave and Martin had to drive back to Crewe.

The final result in the contest was as follows:

160m 80m 40m 20m 15m 10m All Score

153 805 2362 2111 3319 3043 11793

315 1878 6208 5485 8673 7732 30291

24 88 120 132 134 140 638

10 27 36 39 39 37 188 25,020,366

We have received our preliminary UBN report (Unique/Bad/Not-in-Log - the log checking result) and it looks like with a final score of 23,999,976 we missed 24 million points by less than a QSO. The score reduction is 4.1%. This is probably 5th place worldwide, 1st in North America and a new zone 8 record by a wide margin.

The top 4 are all in 3point

locations in South America, Africa and Asia.