CQ WORLD WIDE DX CONTEST -- 2012

      Call:      PJ2T
      Category:  Multi-Multi
      Power:     High Power
      Band:      All Band
      Mode:      SSB 
      Country:   Netherlands Antilles
      Zone:      9      

160:   228  11  24
80:     639  22  72
40:     1980  33  109
20:     3757  38  138
15:     3707  36  128
10:     4139  32  125

Comments:

This year's SSB contest was a bit different from the usual Caribbean
Contesting
Consortium PJ2T operation. By May the only member of the CCC signed up to go
was Joe, W9JUV. Also signed up were 7 DLs: Bernie DL5RDP, Dieter DL5RDO,
Helmut
DF7ZS, Rich DK8YY, Sigi DL8AKI, Ingolf DL4JS, and Harald KD8DXU. I
volunteered
to go down early in order to set up the station and provide technical
assistance. I left Madison early on Saturday 20 Oct and arrived at the
station
after a long day, 16 1/2 hours door to door. I then opened the house got
everything energized and set up Station 1. The radios and computer worked
fine
but I had no internet. I made a few QSOs and went to bed. That night we had
huge thunderstorms and torrential rains from the back end of hurricane
Sandy.
Sunday AM I still had no internet and by then the phone was out also. I
finally
got an internet connection to my laptop directly off the DSL modem, but
could
not get the internet on our 4 computer LAN. I spent the next day and a half
screwing around with cables, IP addresses, checking connections, and
rebooting
everything 1000 times. With the help of W0CG and N8ND I finally got
everything
networked and the internet up on all computers. During this time I had at
least
5 different computers at station 2. The original gave up and refused to
boot,
and the first 2 replacements were bad. The next to arrive was Joe, W9JUV on
Monday evening, and the DL contingent arrived en-masse Tuesday evening with
the
exception of DF7ZS who was already on the island on his honeymoon!! The next
problem was the TenTec amplifier at Station 4 which in spite of blowing air
through it for several hours arced when powered up and gave up the ghost.
Opening it revealed a lot of dust and crystalized salt which is a problem
when
you are literally 30 feet from the ocean. It was replaced with a spare
AL-1200.
We then set up the DXE 4 square receiving antenna which refused to work
initially. Some connection cleaning solved that problem. There were a few
other
issues, but by the opening bell we were ready to go. The contest went
without a
glitch. All radios and computers functioned fully during the 48 hours.
Conditions were quite good with the exception of 80 and 160 on the first
night.
It took a long time for them to open. The second night was better. We
celebrated
with a dinner at Landhuis Daniel on Monday night. During the week a lot of
Amstel and Polar was consumed. A special thanks to Ingolf DL5JS who solved
the
problem of our inoperative shack air conditioner before the contest started.
Without that it would have been over 100 degrees (38 deg C) in the shack
during
the contest. Also thanks to my wife Annette KA9DOC who came down for some
diving
on Thursday before the contest and also made several provisioning runs for
us
and made a very nice chicken dinner for Saturday night during the contest.
Everyone made it home safely on time. Thanks to everyone for all of the
QSOs.

The BCC gets 7/8 of the score and Minnesota Wireless gets 1/8 (WI9WI)

For the PJ2T team

Jim WI9WI