No contest is as another one. This was a real marathon again! July is holiday season, so it is for us. Five of our operators were gone. Four were left. We have to thank Heinrich and Gerhard, DH3FAW, for helping us to get the antennas up! Otherways there would not have been a chance to install the 8 x 6ele. We managed it to be QRV 2 hours before the contest started, our first record. Everything was running fine after we fixed the failures of the last contest. The new Eco-Flex 15 cable as feeding line for the 8 x 6ele was installed for the first time but we could not really see an advantage.
The contest started well but QSO-rates did not touch the mark of 100QSOs/hour. In the third hour there was an sporadic E opening. We recognized only a few local stations calling us. The spots on the cluster network told us the band was open to the east. Tuning over the band brought RN6BN from KN95 into our log. Not too many other station were heard. All signals were weak. Highlight was hearing an OM from LN16 over 2550km. But no chance to reach him because he was only 51. The ES-cloud was simply too far away. Stations from JO60 to JO90 enjoyed the opening and could log more than 20 ES-contacts. They were really lucky because in eastern Europe was contest, too. As mostly an ES opening during a contest is more chaos than we can profit of it. After the opening we could watch DK0BN raising QSO-numbers more quickly than us. But on sunday morning we were surprised how many contacts we did during the night. But DK0BN had more QSOs. Everyone only focusing on the magic QSO number 1000. We did it for the first time! Great. Also the score of 321000 is our new record! But there is a compeditor who did a better job! Congratulations to DK0BN's 1060QSOs. Conditions were beside the sporadic E a bit above normal. Activity especially from the east was excellent.
We had a really stressy time because two of the four of us were operating the whole contest. Not more than 4 hours of sleep for each till it was time to operate again. But it was fun! Beside I can tell you that this was another contest were we did not do any CW during the night. QSO-rates were still high enough in SSB.
See you again in September!  We are planning to be QRV again with our loud signal.
 
 
 
 

Impressions:

DK0TR - antennas: 8x6ele and 4x6ele	THE BIG ONE - 8 times 6 element DJ9BV	Oli, DK1CM, and Steve, DF8ZH, running contest
view to the south-west, Frankfurt is visible at the horizon  (picture taken during May 2003)	view to our QTH, the Rhön-mountains in the background. Do you find the antennas?	contesting includes BBQ'ing
operator relaxing		screenshot after QSO NO. 1000
	the team: DK7CM, DL4FCS, DK1CM, DF8ZH (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    : 2003 Jul 05 to 2003 Jul 06
Section : Single
QTH     : Hadrianstrasse 10
        : 63674 Altenstadt

Co-OPs  : DF8ZH;DK1CM;DK7CM;DL4FCS

TX      : TS-850 + Transverter, 600 W
RX      : TS-850 + Transverter 1dB NF
Antenna : 8x6ele + 4x6ele DJ9BV, 15 mAGL, 500 mASL
Log     : TACLog by OZ2M, 1,995, http://www.qsl.net/oz2m


QSOs    : 1028
-invalid:    0                                       Points/valid QSO
-valid  : 1028     QSO-points (*1)    :    321768                 313
WWLs    :   96     WWL bonus (0)      :         0                   0
DXCCs   :   20     DXCC bonus (0)     :         0                   0
                   ------------------------------              ------
                   Total score        :    321768                 313

ODX     : RN6BN in KN95LC at 2273 km

Worked World Wide Locators:
IO91:   2   JN37:  20   JN63:   3   JN97:   1   JO40:  48   JO63:   2   
JN08:   1   JN38:   9   JN65:   3   JN98:   5   JO41:  24   JO64:   4   
JN09:   1   JN39:  19   JN66:   1   JN99:  11   JO42:  24   JO65:   4   
JN14:   1   JN44:   1   JN67:   2   JO01:   4   JO43:  20   JO70:  25   
JN15:   1   JN45:   1   JN68:  15   JO02:   2   JO44:   7   JO71:   7   
JN17:   3   JN46:   3   JN69:  23   JO10:  10   JO45:   2   JO72:   6   
JN18:  12   JN47:  27   JN75:   3   JO11:   4   JO50:  57   JO73:   3   
JN19:   4   JN48:  44   JN76:   4   JO20:  16   JO51:  33   JO80:  10   
JN24:   3   JN49:  48   JN77:   4   JO21:  19   JO52:  16   JO81:   4   
JN25:   2   JN54:   5   JN78:   2   JO22:  16   JO53:  22   JO82:   1   
JN26:   3   JN55:   2   JN79:  30   JO23:   2   JO54:   4   JO83:   1   
JN27:   2   JN56:   3   JN85:   3   JO30:  21   JO55:   3   JO90:   4   
JN28:   2   JN57:   2   JN86:   2   JO31:  54   JO57:   1   JO91:   1   
JN29:   1   JN58:  23   JN87:   3   JO32:  18   JO60:  29   KN08:   1   
JN34:   1   JN59:  24   JN88:  16   JO33:  13   JO61:  35   KN95:   1   
JN36:   5   JN62:   1   JN89:  18   JO38:   1   JO62:  23   KN98:   1   

Worked DXCCs:
9A  :   4   HA  :   3   LA  :   1   OM  :  18   PA  :  48   SP  :  18   
DL  : 622   HB  :  36   OE  :  18   ON  :  32   S5  :   8   UA  :   1   
F   :  48   HB0 :   1   OK  : 127   OZ  :  10   SM  :   3   UR  :   1   
G   :   8   I   :  21   

Top 10 QSO-points:
20030705 1613 RN6BN          59   196 59   049        KN95LC     2273 
20030705 1720 UR5IFM         59   243 59   051        KN98FE     2110 
20030705 1519 IK2DDP/6       59   127 59   043        JN62OW      888 
20030705 1956 LA2PHA         57   415 59   031        JO38IB      861 
20030706 0333 HA6W           55   684 59   289        KN08FB      847 
20030706 0539 IW2DFM/6       59   727 59   148        JN63OI      844 
20030705 2118 I5PVA/6        59   482 59   252        JN63GN      806 
20030706 2351 F6KKA          59   595 59   024        JN24AF      803 
20030706 1248 F/DL3ZAL       53   986 53   002        JN24DE      798 
20030706 0826 F1USF/P        57   819 58   121        JN14VM      784 

73

Oliver Prinz, DK1CM