A1 – MARCONI MEMORIAL TEST 2008
November 17th, 2008Despite my busy schedule, I kept on thinking about getting on the air again during this contest from a different location – one that would be accessible even at times of bad WX. I started asking around and making phone calls to see if JO60LJ – Klinovec, or JO70LR – Jested – were free. The WX prediction talked about a massive cold front moving across western and central Europe and so I eventually gave up such crazy ideas and set myself up at JO70UK. This one is a small yet very nice portable QTH with altitude about 660 mtrs a.s.l. Basically, all directions are open except for the northern paths. This time, I succeeded in securing a little bit more power than usual, and set myself up for operation with the help of one of the OK1KOB members at this very attractive location inside their cabin.
As can be seen, WX was unbelievably beautiful – no wind, very warm for early November – talking about +15 Celsius.
This time, I brought my laptop as well as both of my power amps which did not even get a chance since I resorted to QRO at 400 Watts out by borrowing a nice little amp that can do much more than that 
To my surprise, QRO brings a lot more than I had ever imagined on 2 meters. The hourly rate was at about 30 QSO’s for the first two hours and did NOT fall much in the subsequent hours of operation. Also, the average distance per QSO quickly reached 300 km as I was getting DX calls from stations far away all the time.
From the beginning of the contest up until about 07:00 UTC, I was using the antenna splitter to divide the power between both the Yagi’s. The one aiming west all the time was shooting signal at 150 watts and the other one was fed with 250 watts intended to bring some nice DX from YU. The paradox was that I kept getting more calls with less power from the west than from the south-east. Like I said, at about 07:00 UTC, I decided to make good use of that power and unhooked one of the Yagi’s and rammed the full 400 watts into the other one aiming west most of the time. Immediately, I got about 15 consecutive DX calls from DL (including a few from OK1:) which confirmed my suspicion that power matters
Good propagation conditions and live activity through the night made me stay awake. I finished with 360 QSO’s and 66 big grid squares, total sum of point being cca 123,500. I knew I was not going to win. That was not even my intention. But I wanted to experience QRO for such a great contest as A1 definitely is. Check out the average distance per QSO on the screen of my laptop Italy was pretty active this time – 11QSO’s!! 5 French, 2 LX, 3 PA stations, and 152 DL’s. I love CW !!!!
Good luck everyone in the upcoming contest season of 2009 !!! I will stick to being QRP although QRO is more fun
best 73’s
da da di di di di di di da da da di di da di di