That is not how we wanted to start 2004! It was really cold, especially friday evening, and we had snow. It was even worse than last year. You can compare it with our experience in 2001. Everyone tells that the climax gets wormer, I can not believe.
We had to do some maintanance at our antenna. It got new dipoles and matching cables. After years the connectors got more and more contact problems. It should be military stuff, so we could avoid at least some failures. It took quite a while till everything was running after the long winter break but finally we did it again. At the beginning of the contest we made fantastic QSO-rates. 109 QSOs in the first hour. But it got really bad when it got colder outside again. We could watch the SWR of the antenna going up to 1:2. And it seems that the band gets quiet. The next morning we could locate the problem: ice on the antenna. The elements doubled their thickness. It was foggy the whole night and below the freezing point. Around 11a.m. the ice on the antenna was nearly gone. We are too QRP....hihi   By then the QSO-rates went up again.
All together not bad for a march contest. Hope for better weather in May.

Impressions:

It's winter in the "Vogelsberg"! (direct translation: birds mountain)	the weather on saturday! Prepairing the 8x6ele	how the coax runs
the 8 x 6 ele DJ9BV covered with ice on sunday morning	Thats realy contest weather! Fogy and freezing.	Wolf, DL4FCS (front), and Matt, DJ8OG (back), hunting for points
	the team in march: DL3ZAL, DK7CM, DL4FCS, DK1CM, DJ0WW, DJ8OG (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    : 2004 Mar 06 to 2004 Mar 07
Section : Multi
QTH     : Freiensteinau
        : 60km NE Frankfurt/Main

Co-OPs  : DF8ZH;DJ0WW;DJ8OG;
	  DK1CM;DK7CM;DL3ZAL;DL4FCS;DL6ZBN

TX      : TS-850 + Transverter, 600 W
RX      : TS-850 + Transverter 1dB NF
Antenna : 8*6 + 4*6 elements DJ9BV, 10 mAGL, 500 mASL
Log     : N1MMLogger 3.0.204, http://www.n1mm.com

QSOs    :  929
-invalid:    0                                       Points/valid QSO
-valid  :  929     QSO-points (*1)    :    267197                 288
WWLs    :   92     WWL bonus (0)      :         0                   0
DXCCs   :   16     DXCC bonus (0)     :         0                   0
                   ------------------------------              ------
                   Total score        :    267197                 288

ODX     : SP1UOP/1 in KO10HA at 943 km

Worked World Wide Locators:
IN99:   1   JN44:   3   JN69:  15   JO01:   1   JO42:  25   JO62:  20   
IO90:   1   JN45:   8   JN75:   2   JO02:   1   JO43:  19   JO63:   1   
IO92:   1   JN46:   1   JN76:   1   JO03:   1   JO44:  10   JO64:   1   
JN16:   1   JN47:  19   JN77:   2   JO10:   4   JO45:   1   JO65:   2   
JN17:   1   JN48:  36   JN78:   6   JO11:   5   JO46:   2   JO70:  14   
JN18:   5   JN49:  51   JN79:  17   JO20:  10   JO50:  70   JO71:   4   
JN19:   5   JN54:   3   JN85:   5   JO21:  20   JO51:  31   JO72:   5   
JN25:   1   JN56:   1   JN86:   6   JO22:  10   JO52:  17   JO73:   3   
JN26:   1   JN57:   2   JN87:   2   JO23:   3   JO53:  15   JO80:   5   
JN27:   3   JN58:  27   JN88:  13   JO30:  24   JO54:  12   JO81:   1   
JN28:   2   JN59:  25   JN89:  11   JO31:  60   JO55:   4   JO82:   1   
JN34:   3   JN63:   3   JN97:   1   JO32:  14   JO56:   1   JO90:   2   
JN36:   3   JN65:  11   JN98:   1   JO33:   8   JO57:   2   JO91:   1   
JN37:  13   JN66:   1   JN99:   4   JO40:  50   JO60:  22   JO94:   1   
JN38:   6   JN67:   3   JO00:   1   JO41:  30   JO61:  38   KO10:   1   
JN39:  18   JN68:  11   

Worked DXCCs:
9A  :   8   G   :   6   I   :  29   OM  :   9   PA  :  43   SM  :   1   
DL  : 639   HA  :   3   OE  :  16   ON  :  18   S5  :   9   SP  :   9   
F   :  30   HB  :  21   OK  :  74   OZ  :  14   

Top 10 QSO-points:
20040307 0748 SP1UOP/1       53   695 59   085        KO10HA      943 
20040307 1056 IW6CVN         59   821 59   003        JN63TN      834 
20040307 1054 IQ6AN          59   819 59   043        JN63RO      825 
20040306 2044 IK5ZWU/6       59   443 59   235        JN63GN      806 
20040307 1119 9A4U           55   835 59   024        JN85NK      804 
20040307 1123 9A6NKN         59   837 59   058        JN85NK      804 
20040307 1344 9A7S           59   920 59   292        JN85EG      780 
20040307 0240 OZ5GX          539  611 529  082        JO57FJ      773 
20040307 0806 OZ9AEG         59   709 55   005        JO57GJ      773 
20040307 1345 9A2KK          59   921 59   204        JN85OV      772 

73

Oliver Prinz, DK1CM