September contest is always the big event. Everyone in Europe is focusing on 144 MHz. Something special for us too because we were not QRV last year. As usually we started on saturday morning putting up the antennas. Weather was really like autum. Often light rain and sometimes a short shower but not that bad as it was one week earlier during the Weinheim VHF-meeting. Some new toys were running for the first time: The new amplifier, a Beko HLV-1200. Nice compact "brick" producing an excellent output signal. But at the generator we could not run more than 650W without having the IMD-LED burning. Thinking of going back to the tube amps again. We will see. The other brand new pice is a notebook with a magnesium housing. In past contests we had some trouble with QRM by our own logging computer. Nothing this time. And we are open to logging programs which need more recources.  Finally everything was ready and we were QRV two hours before the contest. Nearly all contest long we had lots of QRM. Just 2 minutes before it started someone wanted to test their signal with us. There was phase noise again! We think that stuff like that should be tested at home or hours before the contest. If the contest once started there is no time for testing. Especially the first 4 or 5 hours are very important to be on. But they were not the only ones with phase noise (:. Also lots of splatters made QSOing hard. For us it was a QRM-contest! On the other hand we were lucky that a thunderstorm just passed by a 100km west of our location. Others had to go QRT. On sunday we had some static rain over an hour with S9 and more. But there were some highlights too. We worked a rare TK in JN42 and T72NC in JN63. From JO67 we got SM/DL4NAC in our log. Usually there is no one availiable via tropo from there. He only had 300W and 2*9ele on a hill. It is possible!
Overall the result is good. Slightly missed the 1000QSO mark this time but again a lot more than 300k points. Thanks to everyone calling us! But there is no chance against competitors on the excellent locations...

We will be on again for the highlight of the year: Marconi Memorial Contest on November 1st and 2nd 2003! We love it if you will give us a call.

Impressions:

first preparations for the 8x6ele by Oli DK1CM	Eugen, DL3ZAL, fixing the ropes	all antennas are mounted
getting the mast slowly up	the 8x6ele on their way up	nearly done!
the setup: 8x6ele and 4x4ele DJ9BV on sunday morning	Oli, DK1CM, and Wolf, DL4FCS, running contest	Eugen, DL3ZAL, and Glyn, DJ0WW, operating
	the team: DL4FCS, DK1CM, DK7CM, DJ0WW, DL3ZAL (from left to right)

Those are the squares we reached:
 

2m

TACLOG -reportfile - 2m

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

Contest : IARU Reg 1 VHF-Contest
Date    : 2003 Sep 06 to 2003 Sep 07
Section : Multi
QTH     : Freiensteinau
        : 60km NE of Frankfurt/Main


Co-OPs  : DJ0WW;DK1CM;DK7CM;DL3ZAL;DL4FCS

TX      : TS-850 + Transverter, 600 W
RX      : TS-850 + Transverter 1dB NF
Antenna : 8*6ele +4*6ele DJ9BV, 10 mAGL, 550 mASL
Log     : TACLog by OZ2M, 1,995, http://www.qsl.net/oz2m

QSOs    :  987
-invalid:    0                                       Points/valid QSO
-valid  :  987     QSO-points (*1)    :    315527                 320
WWLs    :  102     WWL bonus (0)      :         0                   0
DXCCs   :   19     DXCC bonus (0)     :         0                   0
                   ------------------------------              ------
                   Total score        :    315527                 320

ODX     : F5HGO in JN05AI at 899 km

Worked World Wide Locators:
IO90:   1   JN29:   3   JN58:  12   JN89:  13   JO32:  18   JO63:   1   
IO91:   1   JN34:   2   JN59:  23   JN95:   1   JO33:   8   JO64:   2   
JN05:   2   JN35:   1   JN63:   4   JN97:   3   JO40:  69   JO65:   4   
JN06:   1   JN36:   5   JN65:   8   JN98:   9   JO41:  14   JO67:   1   
JN07:   1   JN37:   9   JN66:   1   JN99:  16   JO42:  16   JO70:  27   
JN08:   1   JN38:   7   JN67:   2   JO00:   3   JO43:  19   JO71:   9   
JN09:   2   JN39:  19   JN68:   9   JO01:   3   JO44:   7   JO72:   4   
JN14:   1   JN42:   1   JN69:  22   JO02:   1   JO47:   1   JO73:   4   
JN15:   1   JN44:   4   JN75:   8   JO03:   1   JO50:  76   JO74:   1   
JN16:   3   JN45:   5   JN76:   9   JO10:   8   JO51:  35   JO80:  12   
JN17:   5   JN46:   2   JN77:   4   JO11:   7   JO52:  20   JO81:   3   
JN18:   5   JN47:  17   JN78:   5   JO20:  10   JO53:  10   JO82:   2   
JN19:   7   JN48:  29   JN79:  29   JO21:  16   JO54:   4   JO83:   2   
JN25:   1   JN49:  34   JN85:   1   JO22:   8   JO55:   3   JO84:   1   
JN26:   2   JN54:   6   JN86:   6   JO23:   3   JO60:  32   JO90:   6   
JN27:   2   JN55:   3   JN87:   2   JO30:  23   JO61:  32   JO91:   1   
JN28:   6   JN57:   3   JN88:  13   JO31:  41   JO62:  26   JO93:   1   

Worked DXCCs:
9A  :   4   HA  :   6   LX  :   2   OM  :  19   PA  :  37   SP  :  28   
DL  : 578   HB  :  24   OE  :  15   ON  :  23   S5  :  24   T7  :   1   
F   :  59   I   :  26   OK  : 122   OZ  :   6   SM  :   4   TK  :   1   
G   :   8   

Top 10 QSO-points:
20030906 2247 F5HGO          519  536 55   159        JN05AI      899 
20030907 0304 9A1O           599  659 599  242        JN95IT      865 
20030907 0137 IK0DDP/6       55   637 59   217        JN63KC      863 
20030907 0628 F6KLO/P        59   727 59   142        JN05PG      836 
20030906 2008 TK5KP/P        55   434 55   162        JN42QX      835 
20030907 1353 I6CTJ          55   981 59   071        JN63SO      827 
20030907 0555 HG6Z           55   709 59   265        JN97WV      815 
20030907 0320 I5PVA/6        599  663 599  368        JN63GN      806 
20030907 0641 SM6/DL4NAC/P   59   732 55   072        JO67EH      785 
20030906 1728 F1USF/P        55   287 57   080        JN14VM      784 

73

Oliver Prinz, DK1CM