After the contest in May we expected sunshine for the July event. But we were wrong. Wheater was quite overcast and during the night we had some rain. As four OPs of our team where on holiday the crew was rather small so we decided only to operate 2m with the rig what was running fine in March and May. Starting on saturday morning everything ran well. We were QRV 3 hours brfore the contest started. In the beginning we did very pretty QSO-rates but the average QRB per QSO was quite low. In the early evening we watched spots on the cluster system with tropo contacts between ON/PA to EA. The second OP was looking all the time on the frequencies spotted with his second receiver but nothing audible at our location. But some contact to central France came into our log. As it started raining all our hopes were gone to make a real tropo DX. But then it didn't take long when EA1FDI/p in IN52lv (1635km) called us. We had to ask twice if we are right! Never had such a high QRB via tropo before! Remember it was raining at our location. So we where not in the high preasure area. From now on most of the time the antenna pointed somewhere to the southwest. We could log 6 other EAs from IN63,IN73,IN83,IN93. Asking them about their equipment we got answers like 25 to 100W and a 9ele. Just nice conditions. Also some stations from south-west France were logged. The Activity from this region was rahter low. On the other hand the activity from OK and OM was really high. Mostly around 100 OK stations are logged here. This time it were more than 130. Nice to see how many climbed onto their hills.  We closed the contest with the best result ever. It was the first time more than 300 thousand  points during 24 hours from this location. Only once before we reached the 300k border before. First it was in a September-contest and second was it from JO40xl (950m asl). Can't be compared to this result. We are happy to get a very high QRB average of 329km/QSO. Now we are curious about the results of our competitors.
I guess we will remember this contest for years.
 
 

Impressions:

the location - antennafarm	another look at the antennas	a view to the northeast
the shack; 1st OP: DL6ZBN (left) 2nd OP: DF8ZH (right)	the shack at night	a view to the east - at the horizon JO40XL
have a break, just after putting up the antennas	the team:  DK7CM, DK1CM, DL6ZBN, DM3FM, DG3FAW (from left to right)

Those are the squares we reached:
 

2m

TACLOG -reportfile - 2m

Contest Report from DK0TR in JO40QL at 144 MHz
==============================================

Contest : DARC VHF Wettbewerb
Date    : 2002 Jul 06 to 2002 Jul 07
Section : Multi
QTH     : Freiensteinau
        : 60km NE of Frankfurt/Main

Co-OPs  : DF8ZH;DG3FAW;DK1CM;DK7CM;DL6ZBN;DM3FM

TX      : TS-850 + Transverter, 600 W
RX      : TS-850 + Transverter 1dB NF
Antenna : 4*6 + 8*6 elements DJ9BV, 10 mAGL, 500 mASL
Log     : TACLog by OZ2M, 1,994, http://www.qsl.net/oz2m

QSOs    :  926
-invalid:    0                                       Points/valid QSO
-valid  :  926     QSO-points (*1)    :    304272                 329
WWLs    :   99     WWL bonus (0)      :         0                   0
DXCCs   :   18     DXCC bonus (0)     :         0                   0
                   ------------------------------              ------
                   Total score        :    304272                 329

ODX     : EA1FDI/P in IN52LV at 1632 km

Worked World Wide Locators:
IN52:   1   JN25:   3   JN54:   4   JN87:   2   JO31:  37   JO60:  34   
IN63:   1   JN26:   1   JN56:   2   JN88:  16   JO32:  11   JO61:  38   
IN73:   1   JN27:   3   JN57:   1   JN89:  16   JO33:   7   JO62:  21   
IN83:   2   JN28:   3   JN58:  25   JN97:   2   JO40:  52   JO63:   3   
IN87:   1   JN29:   2   JN59:  18   JN98:   5   JO41:  20   JO64:   5   
IN93:   4   JN34:   1   JN63:   1   JN99:  12   JO42:  21   JO65:   3   
IO90:   1   JN35:   1   JN65:   7   JO00:   1   JO43:  19   JO70:  24   
JN03:   1   JN36:   7   JN67:   2   JO01:   2   JO44:   3   JO71:   7   
JN07:   1   JN37:  16   JN68:  13   JO02:   1   JO45:   3   JO72:   6   
JN08:   3   JN38:  10   JN69:  26   JO10:  11   JO50:  57   JO73:   3   
JN09:   2   JN39:  13   JN75:   3   JO11:   7   JO51:  24   JO74:   1   
JN12:   1   JN44:   3   JN76:   7   JO20:  13   JO52:   7   JO80:  16   
JN14:   1   JN45:   6   JN77:   3   JO21:  12   JO53:  19   JO81:   4   
JN15:   1   JN46:   2   JN78:   4   JO22:   9   JO54:   4   JO84:   1   
JN16:   2   JN47:  19   JN79:  24   JO23:   2   JO55:   4   JO90:   5   
JN18:   9   JN48:  28   JN85:   1   JO30:  22   JO57:   1   JO94:   1   
JN19:   5   JN49:  29   JN86:   7   

Worked DXCCs:
9A  :   5   F   :  57   HB  :  31   OE  :  14   ON  :  21   S5  :  13   
DL  : 529   G   :   4   I   :  21   OK  : 135   OZ  :  12   SM  :   2   
EA  :   7   HA  :   6   LX  :   1   OM  :  18   PA  :  35   SP  :  15   

Top 10 QSO-points:
20020707 0340 EA1FDI/P       59   588 59   179        IN52LV     1632 
20020707 1018 EB1DNA/P       59   815 59   062        IN63AI     1532 
20020707 1143 EA1DDU         59   867 59   040        IN73FM     1367 
20020707 1003 EE2DJB         59   804 59   136        IN83FE     1271 
20020707 0955 EA2AP/P        57   802 55   080        IN83MG     1231 
20020707 1007 EA2URE         59   807 59   287        IN93IA     1159 
20020707 0628 EA2CN/P        57   664 59   119        IN93GF     1151 
20020707 1014 F0DPN/P        59   811 59   117        IN93HG     1143 
20020707 1250 F6FZS/P        59   901 55   152        IN93OA     1133 
20020707 0940 F6GEX/P        53   792 59   009        JN12AM     1047 


73

Oliver Prinz, DK1CM