Guest op. experience

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This is a short story form one of the CQWW DX SSB 2010 Crew member.
Enjoy!

Welcome to paradise !
This is what I heard when, in the morning, waking up, I saw where I were.
Whatever you can dream, it will never be like this place.
On the top of the highest hill ( 700 m.), on an island in the Atlantic Ocean. What else do you need ?
Ok…you need good company and a reason to be there.
The reason was the Cqww ssb 2010 and the company was the Monteverde Contest Team who gave me this possibility.
And all those antenna’s out there….Let’s see…..Three or four antenna’s on each of the 5 bands and a 35m vertical on 160m on top-band.
A lot of work to keep all working properly and make it easy to use during the contest.
We had a week of work (but three of us were there one week before) for all this but at the end we had time to enjoy the contest.
When the contest started I forgot my 17 hours spent in Cape Verde airports and the long 37 hours trip (lots of African issues).
I forgot the unusable road by car and that we had to climb up to the hill by foot. I forgot the lack of water (no road…no water !) and the very humid floor where I slept for six days. The race started and we had the first bad news: no propagation was expected…just 27 sunspot (we had more than 70 the days before).
But we didn’t care…just started running and chasing qso’s.
From the beginning of the contest we knew that with low sunspot number it was very difficult to reach the M/S world record but we really hoped that condition could change in better next day. It didn’t .
Furious pile-up on 15 and 20 meters didn’t ever let the needle go lower than s9. What a shot from Monteverde….our signal seemed to be good always and anywhere.
You know how the contest goes so …. just let me say thank you to the Team that gave me this wonderful chance to be part of their Team in such a nice location and such a nice Contest.
I can tell you ….”yes” the contest was nice and also with a good result, but when you find a tear on your eyes when you go away from some place this means that everything gave you a lot of emotions !
73 de Carlo IK1HJS

take a look
http://picasaweb.google.com/100801410604774827888/CQWWSSB2010D4CCapoVerde

5 responses to “Guest op. experience
  1. my congratulations to all crew D4C who working in CQWW Contest 2010,
    I working you’s on 40 meters 7.169 recived a very strong signal from you 5/9+10 on my Vertical Antena.
    73’s de KB2ELA

  2. Thank you for having responded to my call today, March 27, 2011 while maintaining the contest.
    OM have a license from a few months, I’m glad we connected on 10 meters your beautiful island.
    ((73 ‘))
    by IZØTTG

  3. Tnx for the very short contact on 10/16/2011 . Didn’t get a S/N nor give one ( appr. 2170’s) ..sry. 28.465 Mhz.USB 12:45 Pacific . W6ODF.
    You worked KJ6KMT shortly afterward . 73 es cul Vy O.T.

  4. Thank you for having responded to my call today, March 27, 2011 while maintaining the contest.
    OM have a license from a few months, I’m glad we connected on 10 meters your beautiful island.
    ((73 ‘))
    by IZØTTG

    +1

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