Tiny Elephant's Contest CornerThe Latest Contest News -
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Tiny Elephant's Contest CornerThe Latest Contest News -
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This operation got underway in early January and ran through the 25th with stations on all the HF bands on CW, SSB, and RTTY. It is interesting to note that the operation was 2 years to the month after the spectacular VK0IR Heard Island DXpedition that re-wrote the books for how to do a DXpedition. The ZL9CI team must have read the book and studied the video on VK0IR several times since the group achieved a very successful operation. There was little problem with finding them, either by listening on the usual DXpedition frequencies or watching the PacketCluster spots. The group implemented a web site with several pilot stations around the world so that amateurs could check the status of the operation regarding "bands-for-the-day", frequency changes, equipment or other logistics problems, or regional focus for certain bands.
What turned out to be especially surprising and gratifying was the near-total absence of the jamming and brain-dead ugliness that often interferes with these types of operations. The operators concentrated on their Q-rate during the latter half of the operation by staying on 15 or 20 meters, which enabled a lot of modest stations equipped with wire antennas or a small tribander and no amp to work a new one.
When the final Q was logged, ZL9CI had set a new record total of 95,000+ QSOs, easily surpassing the VK0IR "unbeatable" total. Granted, the weather on Campbell Island was not much different than Seattle this time of year. However, what is remarkable is that the operators had to leave the island each night shortly after sunset and could not return until sunrise because of the status of the island as a nature preserve. The fact that their sunset occurred around 5:30 AM Eastern time put a damper on Top Band activity for virtually everyone.
I'm almost embarrassed to say that I worked ZL9CI 16 times on every mode I could hear them or read them in the case of RTTY. I experienced a sense of guilt when I saw some email soapbox drivel about being a "pig" for working this station so much. I saw multiple threads on the subject vilifying the "piggies" for ruining amateur radio, violating the ham spirit by hogging the DX station, etc. I usually shrug off this electronic tabloid stuff as the work of people with a shoe size larger than their IQ. I did notice a very good counter to the hog syndrome by one of the pilot stations that said the ZL9CI folks wanted to work anyone anywhere, as long as they weren't a "dupe".
The issue of "duping" the station gave me pause for thought. I checked the ZL9CI web site for the near-realtime on-line log that often reflected contacts as recent as 24 hours. The beauty of having the log available is that one can clearly see if he is in the log for a particular band or mode. Out of curiosity, I entered a few callsigns of seasoned DX/contester stations that I heard working ZL9CI or saw as the originator for a DX spot. I shook my head when I saw that some of these guys worked ZL9CI 2-3 times on more than one band! I will give a station a dupe even with on-line logs; he may not have web site access, or QRM partially covered the DX when he identified (my excuse for a dupe). Working ZL9CI several times on the same band, however, says something about a stations logging practices - or lack thereof. Neither I can't buy the argument of just asking ZL9CI when he is going to be on a certain band/mode; the well-publicized bulletins on the web site and packetcluster announcements during the operation answered that question. Getting flamed as a hog can be avoided by simply adhering to the First Commandment of DXing: LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN. That's funny; I heard this admonition all the time from non-hams while growing up.
The activities available for March look like a good place to just listen and be just a ham:
73, es good hunting, de K2TE