Here is the October contest report (by DL6AUI and DL2AKT) :
DL0GTH's Last Contest Report
...for 2005.
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This
extraordinary contest year ends with another extraordinary weekend.
Statistics is mostly right. Because we had already two good weather contests
this year (which is much more than the average) we have expected bad weather
again. We were not surprised to see that Central Europe enjoyed good weather
at the weekends before contest and the week after the contest. But on
October contest weekend we had 1. A lot of rain on Saturday 2. Heavy wind on Saturday 3. and it was cold as well (6°C)
Water proof clothing does not prevent you becoming wet after 7 hours of
antenna installation. Will ask diving sportsmen for recommendations.
We loaded the Gotha van already on Friday. But Saturday night, at 4am,
Hartmut, DL6AUI, remembered that 4 tent-pegs would be missing. We
grabbed those in the morning (thanks Hartmut for his preventive contest
dreams).
Arriving at Schneekopf mountain at 9am we enjoyed the weather already
described. We appreciated the meteorologists for their good forecasts,
imagined how convenient it would be if we would return to our warm and
dry homes. However, we were not looking for good weather but for good
contest. And we remembered that our results (compared to competitors)
were always better in bad weather contests. What a great motivation!
The installation of all the antennas and equipment went slowly with all
the winds and water everywhere. Someone's glasses were steamy, others
claimed to be wet already down to the socks, other were hungry,
thirstily... But the goal was to be ready at 14UTC. Achieved! (Except of
our 23cm laptop which finished boot procedure at 14:02). It was even
time to replace our wet clothing with dry ones.
There was no chance for 24GHz and 47GHz on Saturday because of constant
rain. We hoped for Sunday. And really, on Sunday the weather was
acceptable for 24GHz and 47GHz and we got some QSOs in the log.
The propagation conditions were below normal on all bands, participation
as low as assumed (because of the weather). Taking this into account, we
are very satisfied with the results in terms of points achieved. We
could have done better, if more OPs would had been available (we were
just 4 and 2 technicians).
We were happy that our ham radio equipment did a better job than our
'water proof' clothing. All the equipment run perfect over 24 hours. But
we got also a long list of maintenance items to be done during winter,
e.g. a complete reconstruction of our 2m dish for 23cm.
The final photo shows the bushed team before leaving 'our' contest
mountain at 16:30 UTC. A short summary of the results :
Looking forward to meet all of you in next years contest season on all
the bands (or in person at GHz Tagung in Dorsten in February 2006).
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