On Friday I worked OX/DL2SWW on 17M CW for a new iota. They were qrv from NA-151.

During CQWW SSB this weekend, I finally managed to work PJ2T for the last of the PJ's. I only worked 31 contacts this weekend, and tried to catch LoTW users on 10M. I did manage to work C91WW on 10M SSB for a new on 10M and on SSB.

On Friday, I worked TO7ZG in St. Barthelemy on 30M RTTY. That was both a new on 30M (#267) and RTTY (#203). I also worked DT8A South-Shetland on 30M CW. It was nothing new, but it is a semi-rare dx. Last time I worked South-Shetland was back in 2000.

On Saturday, I managed to work J28AA on 15M CW (#228 15M). LA6Q in EU061 was worked on 17M CW.

Sunday morning was time for the new PJ-stations. I managed to work PJ4D and PJ6A on 40M CW. I tried several of the others, but I couldn't get through to them. VQ9LA was worked on 12M CW with a good signal. OX3XR was worked on 15M CW for a new one on 15M (#229).

PJ7E was worked on 17M CW on Monday. I did try PJ2T on 15M CW and PJ5/K1XM on 12M CW, but I could not break the pile-up.

LoTW and the logsearch has been updated with the latest qsoes.

As WY is one of 2 missing LoTW states, I was very lucky to work WY7SS. WY7SS uploaded the log to LoTW on Monday. That means only ND to go.

I also got 2 new RTTY DXCC's wih VP9I and SU/HA3JB. That brings my RTTY total to 202.

Early Saturday morning, I couldn't fall back to sleep, so I decided to go on 40M and start running. The first station was W7MRC in WA with a nice signal. Conditions had to be pretty good. I continued running and 4L, UN, YV, VE, PY, EA8 and plenty of W stations called in. I also got HI3TEJ with a nice signal.

I went to 20M after 40M didn't bring much. The second call was AL9A in Alaska. I only have one other station from Alaska on RTTY, so this was a nice surprise. I continued running for several hours with mostly Europeans calling in, with a few DX stations like YV, VE, VK, JA and plenty of W's.

I never bothered with 15M and ended the contest on 40M. Signals from stateside were quite strong at the end of the contest, so it was a pity the contest was over.

All in all, I worked GA and KS for two new RTTY states which makes my total 39. Totally I worked a few over 300 qsoes in this one. I wonder how many I could have worked if I had worked the full 24 hours. As always, I'm just a casual contester and doing this for fun.

I uploaded the log to LoTW on Sunday evening, and I have gotten plenty of confirmations. I'm just 2 away from LoTW RTTY DXCC. I guess those will come quickly, since I know I worked LoTW users that haven't uploaded the log yet.

In the contest I worked around 30 contacts, and the new IOTA's were CS2K EU-167, 4O1OTA EU-163, W3DX NA-067 and UW2F/P EU-179. That makes my IOTA total come up to 314.

On July 24th, I managed to work 9X0TL for #267 on 30M.

On July 25th, I noticed JW/OZ1IKY was spotted on 6M. An OZ group was operating from JW5E in JQ78. I have never managed to work this square. After listening for a few hours, he came up strong enough for me to work him. That was square #646 worked on 6M.

Er det noe kunne tenke seg å bruke noen timer på å operere LN2HQ NRRL’s stasjon i kommende helg i IARU HF Championship contest 10-11 juli?
Klikk deg inn på www.nrrl.no/ln2hq og meld deg på.

Per i dag så er følgende båndslåtter ledige, samtlige kjøres fra forskjellige QTH omkring i Norge.

• 160 CW
• 80 SSB
• 40 SSB
• 10 CW

73 Stein Roar, LA6FJA, LN2HQ koordinator

On Thursday February 18th, I was picked up at the Oulu airport. We arrived at the station after about 40 minutes. It almost felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. The last part we drove, were on long straight roads with no houses in sight. And suddenly, we took off into the forest. Since it was late in the evening, it was all dark, so all I could see were some red light up in the two highest towers. I could only imagine how things would look like in daylight. The weather was quite cold with temperatures around -30C, luckily it was nice and warm inside.

OH8NC Juha, LB3HC Marius and LA6FJA Stein Roar was already there. LB3HC arrived on Wednesday, and LA6FJA had arrived earlier that day. OH7EA Antti were set to arrive on Friday. After getting a quick tour of the cabin it was time to check out the shack. It was very tidy and nice built up. Tower rotating was easy with touchscreen control. You just had to touch the tower you wanted to turn and choose on a map where it should beam into. As for choosing antennas to work with, it was done automatically. You only had to choose which stack to transmit and/or listen to. The system is very professional built up. You can choose from one or more towers to use at the same time. That way you can for instance transmit in two directions and only listen in one.

A bit later, I had to try out the station. The software we were going to use was Win-Test. Since I haven't used it before, I had to practice a little bit. As I know that OH8X often have those late night openings to the US, I hit 20M CW. After about 20 minutes and 25qsoes, I went to 40M, but I couldn't really get a good run here either. I guess OH isn't that rare. I went back to 20M, were I heard KP2/K3TEJ and V31GA with an auroral sound. I worked both of them. I then went to 80M CW to try the 5 element. I heard HS0ZEE strong and worked him easy. BA8BA came back nice and strong on my CQ. I worked a handful of stations and among them were FG5FR and J38JO with strong signals. After a quick visit to 40M were I worked C6APG, I found that 20M was still open. Getting few takers, I went to bed. I was a bit tired, and sleep is always good.

The next morning I wanted to check out 15M. I heard several stations, and started cqing. I worked several JA's, ZL, VK, BY and 5Z0H. On 40M I worked 6Y1LZ. I couldn't get a run on 40M, so I checked 20M. Bill 5W0OU was there cqing away. The signal wasn't that strong, but I broke the pile-up. I continued on 20M and a few hours later I went to 40M. I worked almost 200 qsoes before the contest with the OH8X call. I can tell you, that with a system like this, you are sure to get spoiled. Breaking a few pile-up's were easy, and it was nice to be a big-gun for a change.

I did make use of the day to take a lot of pictures which can be seen under photoalbums. I even captured a nice sunset with the M1 (4 x 6el 20M, 2 x 2 el 80M) 105M high tower. Ah, you gotta love towers in the sunset!

LA6FJA and I were set up to work the same 9 hour pass, so we got a few hours of sleep in the evening. When I woke, OH7EA had arrived. The crew were now complete and we were ready for the contest.

We hit the airwaves as the contest started. The run weren't that excellent, but qsoes kept filling up the log. The run got slower and slower during the night and when our pass was over, LB3HC and OH7EA took over. We were on a 9 hour rotating shift until the last night. Conditions were a bit up and down most of the weekend. 20M didn't have that long haul late night opening to the US the first night. The second night, it was much better. 15M was quite good on Saturday, but even better on Sunday. 15M never really closed until around 21z on Sunday. The band was quite amazing long after dark with plenty of KH6 stations coming through, and even TX4T. OH7EA gave them a call. 20M turned out to be our moneyband with 40M in second and 15M on third. On Sunday night, we never left 20M, and worked it till the end. There were a few hours with very slow rates on Sunday morning were we had autocq on both radioes with no reply. At some point, it almost felt like we emptied out 40M. We got spotted several times, but no callers. All in all it was great to run the contest from this superstation. We broke the Finnish Multi2 record by about 1.7 million points and our claimed score is 2.7 million.

I would like to thank Juha OH8NC and Veijo OH6KN for their hospitality and letting us use the OH8X station. I would also like to thank Marius LB3HC for making this possible and thanks goes to the rest of the team; LA6FJA and OH7EA for a great weekend.

Call: OH8X
Operator(s): LB3HC, OH7EA,  LA6FJA, LA8AJA
Station: OH8X

Class: M/2 HP
QTH: Arcala
Operating Time (hrs): 48

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:   85    32
   80:  342    49
   40:  878    58
   20: 1593    59
   15:  666    57
   10:    0     0
-------------------
Total: 3564   255  Total Score = 2,720,340

Club: Contest Club Finland

Here is the summary from the contest this weekend. I was lucky to get the opportunity to work from this enormous station. I'll post some pictures and a little write-up later.