Last October I participated at OT5A in the SSB version of this contest. Unfortunately there aren’t enough CW ops at the the station to participate in the CW version to make the large scale setup of the multi-multi station worthwhile, but that’s fine. I participate from home.

Originally I wanted to begin at the start of the contest, but with a tough week at work, I decided to grab some sleep and get up early in the morning. I upgraded my Chameleon Hybrid to the Mini, so I could run continuously 100W. The antenna was the SS25 whip.

At first I tried a bit on the low bands. But a short vertical isn’t really that good obviously. I tried to work what I could, while waiting for the higher bands to open. That wait always takes a long tiime, hi.

There were good early morning conditions towards JA and I even managed to work a JA5, which made me happy, since I’ve been on the beautiful Shikoku island earlier this year. I trawled the high bands all day long and in the evening I planned to change the antenna to the Spiderbeam 12m mast with the double slinky wire, but unfortunately wind and rain made that impossible, so I switched off and watched some TV to give my ears some rest from all the beeping.

Sunday another early start, with more running blocks this time. This was useful in building the amount of contacts and points. In the evening it was less windy, so I put up the slinky contraption and worked a bit on the low bands, till…….. crash, the mast contracted. Turns out the bit of electrical tape which tied the top of the slinky to a bit of rope, ripped, and everything came down. Oh well, I was too tired to put in the effort of fixing it in the cold and dark, so I quit 3 hours earlier, with some good contacts on the low bands to gradually work towards my 5BDXCC.

I’m happy with my result with my mediocre antenna system. On to the next one!