I was curious, if the conditions will be „solar maximum friendly“ or „solar cycle declining friendly“. It was 50:50, finally.
I was bothered by various ACOM 2000A miniproblems over years. I lost patience with it and decided to send it to ACOM for general repair. I sent it early enough to be back before the ARRL CW contest. The first stress was caused by shipping company. My large and heavy package was returned from journey to Bulgaria and without delivery to ACOM… 2 weeks loss. Second attempt was OK, but not sure if ARRL CW will be with 2nd PA or not. Boys from ACOM were clever and helped as they could and PA was back in time.
Btw, in the condition of a brand new PA. No problem during the entire contest. Many thanks, ACOM guys!
Conditions looked relatively good at the beginning. 20m was not usable, but 40m+80m worked fine. 160m with good pileup, I was looking forward to Sunday morning additional QSOs and mults. Saturday morning of west coast opening on 20m. Then necessary day nap.
I was a bit late on air on Saturday afternoon, found high bands fully opened, so I skipped directly into 15m+10m. Then 20m, but closed a bit early, but 40m started to work, then also 80m. I also monitored 160m from time to time, tried to call CQ, but no answer… No one QSO on 160m on Sunday morning. Also 80m go down. Surprisingly, also 40m morning opening didn’t occur.
I was much early on high bands on Sunday, but bands were not in Saturday’s shape. I was running with 2 radios as much as possible to have sufficient number of mults. I hoped to usual 40m pileups during last 2-3 hours. But none. It was reduced to last cca 20-30 minutes only.
Murphy was not very active this time. Nothing burned, nothing has critically bothered me. Suspicious weak sound of RX vertical system on Sunday morning. I walked around the antennas, checked interconnects in two racks, but root cause wasn’t found. Then I came back to hamshack and found RX ANT fully functional. Later deeper analyses proved, that two unused wires of the control cable was randomly touched to the ground. Oh those temporary installations… Who could do it such „low cost“ way? One man station provides easy answer to this question… (hi)
VOACAP predictions were (fortunately) much more pessimistic, than reality. 2026 ARRL conditions were not as bad as 2025; more Qs, MULTs and higher score. But far beyond the superconditions in 2023.
Unfortunately, minimum EU stations posted their livescore in SOAB HP. 4 superstations and I. I had no one to race with.
Sorry to those few guys who wanted to CW ragchew during the full contest load. No way, it’s a contest, hi.
But at the end of the day: good fun, new experiences with SO2R and fine relax.
Thanks to all guys on the other end of the air.
.
Final score: x xxx xxx
Category: SO AB HP
Rank: WW #xx EU #xx OM #x
RAW score: 1 707 480
Category: SO AB HP
Rank: WW #11 EU #6 OM #1
Call: OM7K
Operator(s): OM7RU
Station: OM7RU
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: JN98OQ
Operating Time (hrs): 36:42
Location : Northern Europe
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
----------------------------------------
160: 53 15
80: 257 37
40: 772 54
20: 569 56
15: 404 51
10: 177 42
----------------------------------------
Total: 2232 255 Total Score 1,707,480
Used equipments:
Yaesu FTDX101D
Kenwood TS-590SG
OM Power 3500A
ACOM 2000A
microHAMs: MK2R+, 2x Station Master, doubleTEN, ARCO
2x OM Power OM6BPF
DXLog
Antennas:
160m: Half Sloper
80m: OptiBeam OB1-80 @34m
AD-3446 @31m
Cushcraft A4S @6,5m
40m: Inv Vee @20m
5 circle phased vertical RX array
73!
Riki, OM7RU
www.tucek.sk/om7ru