PACC 2017This year we participated as PA9G in the PACC 2017 contest. We operated as The Three Musketeers (Rob PA3X, Gerald PA9G and me PA8E) as multi-op, single transmitter. I practically moved my entire shack over to Gerald’s cabin in the woods. The big antenna plans we had before turned out to be a little too ambitious. We didn’t had that much lot to cover and as a result we had to work with only one antenna we already put up: the Fritzel FD-3. Because of this choice Continue reading

contestingLast weekend I did some contesting. Not like 2014 (my top-contest year) when I made over 3000 contacts. This time in a more sober way. I only got a view hours to spend. Two major contests going on last weekend: PACC and CQ WPX RTTY. My favorite contestmode is RTTY, but I feel a little obligated to participate in the PACC as a Dutch HAM. I started the PACC in CW-mode. But after 10 contacts I concluded my CW-skills are not yet up to speed for contests. I switched to CQ WPX RTT, made 100 contacts and then my time was up. Sunday I increased my PACC numbers with voice to 50 contacts.
No spectacular results but it was fun to participate in a contest again.

This weekend I entered the CQ WPX RTTY contest and the PACC.

I really like contesting in RTTY-modus! I’ve setup N1MM with MMTTY and that works fine. Did a relax contest weekend, doing breaks left and right, didn’t miss a hour of sleep. Most important thing is to have fun! Speaking of fun, I also did participate in the PACC contest which I entered for a few years now. It always was great fun doing it. This year for the first time I didn’t like it anymore. 2 Things that bothered me: I don’t like voice contests anymore. It’s so noisy! The whole band seems full. When I called CQ on a frequency that seemed free, after a while I heard a response for another station. So apparently the frequency was occupied only I was unable to hear it. And the other thing: the PACC should be around the Dutch Amateur. So IMHO Dutch amateurs should call CQ and others should S&P. But not during the PACC. There are so many amateurs in this little country and less (like it seems) foreign participants. Tuning around the bands I heard many foreign amateurs calling CQ PACC. That seemed weird to me. Low and behold I scored 50 QSO’s and I was done with it. Back to CQ WPX RTTY contest! Need many more practice on this CW-thing. I want to do CW-contests. If the are as much fun as the RTTY-ones I would really enjoy doing them.

Sadly I didn’t hear Jim, K5ND 🙁 I even set an cluster alarm on his call and let run HRD Logbook on the background so I would be alerted when he’s spotted somewhere, but no luck. Maybe more luck next time Jim! I already read you scored quite nice on this one! Congrats!