Tiny Elephant's Contest CornerThe Latest Contest News -
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Tiny Elephant's Contest CornerThe Latest Contest News -
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From football to ham radio, it seems fitting that we had our own Super Bowl of sorts this past January. Whether you’re a DXer or not, few amateurs have NOT heard about the incredible VK0IR DXpedition to Heard Island in the Indian Ocean. A group of 20 of the world’s foremost DXers, armed with dozens of antennas, miles of wire, half a dozen Alpha linears, four generators, and a month’s supply of Domino’s frozen best, descended on the wild, pristine shores of this sub-Antarctic island. Heard Island is (or was) one of the most wanted countries in the bizarre world of the DXer. A glance at globe and one can understand why - it is thousands of kilometers from anywhere.
The Heard Island expedition set a benchmark for DXpeditions that will be hard to beat. The group had over 80,000 QSOs, a world record. They were active on every popular amateur band with the objective of working as many new stations as possible. They sported many new antenna designs such as 4 square arrays for 160, 80, and 40 meters. That they were easily heard up here everywhere except 12 and 10 meters is a testament to their planning and knowledge of propagation. They were also comfortable with the Internet. Station logs and bulletins were uploaded daily via packsat to John, ON4UN, Lyndon, VE7TCP, and others for posting on a web site. The beauty of this is that you could immediately check to see if they logged you the day before right when a carrier covered them up as you thought they were answering you. It was also a place to read postings of the pathetic whining for those that had not worked them yet, or the accolades that bordered on deification from those who had. The distribution of stations worked by band, call areas, and time of day will provide propagation modelers with enough data to chew on until the next sunspot peak (next year, right?).
I could go on but there is no need. No doubt millions of words will be written about the expedition to go with 80,000 stories. The one think that sticks with me is an observation made by Bob Schmeider, KK6EK, co-organizer of the expedition. He marveled at the fact that they were a group of 20 people representing 9 different nationalities and cultures. The planning had been long and complicated; the trip half way around the world (most of it by boat) exhausting; the weather and “residents” likely to be inhospitable. Yet, throughout the ordeal, there was not the slightest hint of animosity or selfishness in anyone. They were all amateur radio operators and all on an equal footing in the amateur fraternity. Communicating beyond mic and key can accomplish fantastic things.
Getting back to reality, pro football is over and we are moving into the “March Madness” of the college basketball playoffs. It’s fun to watch these amateurs, long before the big $$ dehumanizes them. Let’s see what kind of madness the month of March has for another kind of amateurs:
Scoring is computed as 10 points/Russian station; 5 points/QSO on another continent; 3 points/QSO same continent, different country; and 2 points/QSO same country. I think the scoring makes sense for Russian stations given the size of their country. Multipliers are the number of countries and oblasts on each band. Final score is the total QSO points times total multipliers. Scores go to the SRR contest committee, POB 59, 105122 Moscow, Russia.
Scoring is total number of QSO points x number of prefixes worked. Contest entries go to CQ Magazine by 10 May 1997. One of the key things to operate this contest is to have a unique prefix. Many hams with a 2x1 callsign do well in this type of contest; with the recent “trade-ins” for vanity calls, there are fewer 2x1 calls so that pile-ups should be even better.