Sunday, February 9, 2020

PACC 2020 contest review

Event: PACC 2020
Section:  Single Operator All band SSB low assisted
Logger: N1MM+ newest version
TRX: Icom IC-7300 100W
Antenna 1: Inverted-V 2x20m @12m apex
Antenna 2: Multiband vertical @16m
Antenna 3: 3 band PE1BVQ endfed @groundlevel with radials


Well, the most important HF contest for us dutch radioamateurs is over. We did have fun and have to wait till next year. Propagation was great......well at least for solarcycle minimum. No..... propagation has not been really good and at certain times I thought there was a almost complete blackout. But there was propagation for shure, only no stations on SSB. 15m was open at certain times but there were only few stations. I worked Israel and Brazil for the only 2 on that band. 20m was not really good, almost the same as last year. Worked only a few stations from north america. Most of the stations came from east european countries on that band with a few exceptions. Even not many Italians. 40m was good at times, again no participating stations. HZ1TT (Saudi Arabia) was booming in at saturday evening, worked him but he didn't participate in the PACC contest. A neighbour station PD2TW told me he had been calling for 1 hour on 40m without any response, he never had that before. I almost had the same experience on 80m. Normally in the past years, the time after the evening 8 O'clock news was always good for large pile ups. But this year I could call without much response. Best band actually was 160m, it was occupied by the dutch....and I had a steady response for a while. The score... well it is disappointing. I never had such a bad score ever in this section. I have been searching in my archives and always made 500-600 QSOs except for 2008 and a few years that I did participate in the QRP section. Is it a reflection of the bad propagation or is it just choosing the wrong band at the wrong time? I still miss a good antenna for the 20m band, I'm shure my score would improve if I had a good beam for that band. I tried my best on 20m this time but around 90 is really the max. I can do, almost the same as last year.

Some stats:


Best QSO rate was in the morning at 7 UTC actually. I took a break to sleep at 00:30 till 5:30 UTC. QSO rate at 00:00 went down to zero and I could hear almost no stations at all except for some die hard dutch contest club stations.


No north america on 80m or 40m this time. O yes, there was propagation, I heard several stations on the DX part of the 80m band, but non that participate in the PACC contest. 40m was also open to the middle east but did hear nothing. Have been chasing E44CC for a while sunday morning but although he had a good signal he didn't hear me at all.


48 DXCC worked, might not be bad under the circumstances.  But is was not all bad. I had a nice chat with OY1R (Faroer Isl.) Regin at night on both 160m and 80m with beautiful strong signals. As you know we met 4 years ago when Regin brought me his QSL card personally. And there were a lot of friendly operators all around like always in this contest. Some of them I know personally, others have familiar calls that always show up in this contest. It was fun and that's the most important thing...




14 comments:

VE9KK said...

Good evening Bas, I was on yesterday both on 20m and 40m and heard not one Dutch contest station. From your post it seems that North America was not really a strong signal. Very nice work getting HZ1TT! I have done the same when in a contest a rare station pops up and I spend some time to work them even if they are not in the contest.
Thanks for sharing your contest adventure.
73,
Mike
VE9KK

Paul Stam PAØK said...

Hallo Bas, mooi resultaat ondanks de Solar Minimum. Helaas ben ik helemaal de contest vergeten. Terwijl ik alle tijd had. Ik zag het pas gisteravond. Je antennes staan nog na de storm? 73 Paul

Alfed pa7al said...

Leuk verslagje weer bas condx waren inderdaad niet super wij toch 200 qso,s meer dan vorig jaar 73 pa7al multi2

Photon said...

Hard going! Congratulations on getting what you could, under the circumstances. The gemoagnetic field was quite disturbed early on the weekend, I think.

pa4m said...

Veel of weinig qso's het gaat erom dat het leuk was. Wij van PG6G zijn tot ruim 1250 qso's gekomen (mix mode). Ieder jaar lees ik in de verslagen dat de condities niet optimaal waren maar zoals jij ook al opmerkte het is meer de activiteit die ontbreekt, met name in SSB. In CW zijn er véél meer stations actief tijdens de PACC. Mogelijk dat veel phone contesters mee doen met de cq ww rtty test die samen valt met de pacc. CW operators zijn daarintegen misschien wat meer mode vast. Komend weekend is er de arrl cw dx contest en dan zit de hele band wel ineens vol met dx vanuit NA. Tot werkens.

MadDogMcQ said...

Well done Bas. I have never entered a competition yet but I look forward to getting involved some time soon. I will wait for my local Radio Club to be involved so that I can be part of it and learn the professional techniques.

73, Tom, M7MCQ

PE4BAS, Bas said...

Hello Tom, if I was you I would start with the UKEICC contests. They are 1 hour long and you can download a certificate next day. See one of this months previous posts. 73, Bas

PE4BAS, Bas said...

Propagation to north america was there but not very strong. I don't know when you listened for Netherlands yesterday but the contest could have been over. It ended at 12 UTC. 73, Bas

PE4BAS, Bas said...

Toch weer jammer Paul. Jeleest mijn blog niet vaak genoeg ;-). 73, Bas

PE4BAS, Bas said...

Hallo ALfred, altijd leuk jullie te horen. Ik moet zeggen dat ik altijd een goed signaal ontving van jullie. Perfect gedaan! 73, Bas

PE4BAS, Bas said...

I don't know John, we have to wait for the resulys so I can compare. I know there was propagation but not enough participants on the bands. 73, Bas

PE4BAS, Bas said...

Persoonlijk denk ik ook dat het meer het ontbreken van stations was. Alhoewel op 80m andere jaren vaak prima binnen Nederland/Belgie/Duistalnd te werken was op zaterdag avond, dat was dit jaar helaas niet het geval. 73, Bas

Unknown said...

Hallo Bas,

net je analyse gelezen en wil je complimenteren. In jou klasse met je antenne situatie een prima score en vermoedelijk heb je de vijver grotendeels leeg gevist.
Uiteindelijk hebben de condities ons genekt denk ik en niet zo zeer het aantal deelnemers in SSB.
Als het zoals dit jaar erg lastig is om überhaupt een paar PA's te werken zullen denk ik dat veel potentiele deelnemers afhaken en volgend jaar weer hun vaantje proberen te halen.
Dus meen ik dat het niet de interesse in onze PACC maar de mogelijkheid op enig succes de rem is op de SSB deelname dit jaar.
Ik verwacht dat het vanzelf weer aantrekt.
Om nog even je resultaat verder te onderstrepen, zelf doe ik de laatste 4 jaar mee in de B klasse en ik merk dat wij slechts weinig meer Q's weten te halen en op ongeveer dezelfde
aantal M's uit komen in de laatste jaren nu we in het dal zitten en wij het moeten hebben van de lagere banden.
In mijn geval met 400 watt, en wellicht een iets betere 2 el. beam voor 20 als in jou geval maak ik maar weinig verschil zo lijkt het.
Overigens wel van uit een woonwijk met veel man-made noise (altijd S6 of meer vanaf 40 meter en up).
Dat geeft voor mij aan dat wij beide de vijver hebben leeg gevist en er denk ik niet veel meer als 500-600 ssb kansen zijn geweest deze PACC.

73' Arbo
PHØAS

PE4BAS, Bas said...

Hallo Arbo, bedankt voor je reactie. Had de e-mail ook al gehad met hetzelfde bericht. Zal daar op antwoorden. Zelf had ik de ervaring dat er wel degelijk condities waren....maar veel amateurs laten het ook gewoon afweten in het solar minimum. 73, Bas