SV9/OH4FR : CQWW SSB Contest 2000 SOSB10m LowPower from Crete Island

This was the first time I made an contest effort from Crete Island. Being on a family vacation and travelling by airplane, antennas and equipment had to be small and light. I constructed two loop antennas for 10 meter. They were matched to 50 Ohms by quarter wavelength transformers (RG59). The two antennas were placed on the top of our hotel at 90 degrees.This antennasystem worked fairly good. While operating, I had to deal with two problems.
The first was strong local qrn, caused by sparcs on a powertransformer in the street. Even at daylight you could see the sparks on the salty isolators. My transceiver, a Kenwood TS140S, had a noiseblanker which was very effective, as long as the sigs from the stns on the band were not too strong....
Secondly, there are mountains, abt 2500 m high and abt 20 km away, just on the path to Northamerica. Although I made 1631 QSOs and an alltime record for SV9, most QSOs were made with Europe at an high takeoff angle.
Five years later I operated from the north coast, having no obstacles to any important direction (see 2005).

                 Click on the pictures will show them in large format.




Assemling the cross from fiber rod




Antenna down...


...and antenna up in the wind.



The antenna setup for the contest



Junior Max checking condx
before the contest

Operating CQWW SSB 2000


                                                  




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