- MP-1 Antenna on the „Hermannsturm“
   | No Conditions are Good ConditionsOne of my favorite contests ever is the DARC 10m Contest. In the80’s several times per year it is reduced to only one date: The January DARC 10m Contest. Mostly there are bad conditions, two years ago I worked stations from Italy or Spain during the contest. But today the band was closed. This is a big advantage for the radio-hiker on the summit: No DX condition means, that the high-power stations with beams can work also over groundwave only. My station today: about 20w output into my MP-1 antenna. Temperatures on the tower around 0°C, no rain or snow. So I decided to operate directly from the platform. I started 10 minutes too late, because the ascent on the „Dörenberg“ was very difficult. Crusted snow and ice-fields forced me to go very slow. A normal ascent takes 20-25 minutes, now I needed 1 hour. On the top of the summit were 30cm crusted snow, but the tower was luckily free of snow and ice. Quick I installed the MP-1 and connected the transceiver. Log ready, clock ready, free frequency and: CQ CONTEST DC7CCC/P CONTEST. The first call was at 09:11 UTC and was followed by the first answer. Until 10:59 I logged 117 QSO. This year SSB only. CW is in this contest a waste of time except you are in the CW class only. Only one group hikers visitied the tower today. After the first hour of the contest wind came up … the last 30 minutes the windchill gave me a -20°C feeling. I was glad when the contest ended and I left the tower quickly. I cancelled also the planned additional 40m SOTA operation. Results: 117 QSO, 1 DXCC, 58 DOKs = claimed score 6903 points. I hope it won’t give too much deduction of the points. Some stations had problems with DC7CC and DL7CCC and DC7CCC 🙂 QTH: Hermanssturm, Dörenberg, JO42AE, 331m high plust 21m tower. Ref: DM/NS-036, WFF DLFF-125 (Terra Vita) |