YNOMY plans for 2019 - new expedition but no PACC

We have some nice highlights to look back on in 2018 - a year that was not especially spectacular from a HF propagation point of view. Apart from some individual activities we had two major activities as a team: PACC and HB0 WWFF expedition.

The one and only contest we participate in to win, we won for a third time in a row - beating all single TX participants. This was a nice success, a confirmation of our strategy and a reward of the effort we put in again - setting up a proper contest station for a weekend.

The biggest highlight however was our trip to HB0. It was a real pleasure to be out for a whole weekend and work many chasers out portable with two stations on the air most of the time from gorgeous locations.

Planning for 2019 we were keen to do another WWFF expedition and hopefully replicate the fun of HB0 (2018) and LX (2017). We are in the planning stages and will update our blog once we have finalised our plans. 

After some deliberation we have decided that we will not participate in PACC this year and probably for some years to come. The reason is that we do not really perceive the challenge we need to put in the effort. We have not changed our setup, so there is nothing to test and tweak and going for a fourth win in a row just is not motivating enough.
The good news is that the first place in the MOST category of PACC is now available for one of the other teams :)

We are considering entering one of the worldwide contests in a for us competitive category, for example focusing on a specific band. This is still an idea that we need to develop further (what contest, what category, etc.)

Ending with nice memories of HB0:

PG55G experiences PACC 2018

Our 5th PACC went reasonably smoothly. We had a bit of a rough start when our main CW operator - PG8M - had to leave us for the first hours of the contest to attend the funeral of an OM that died unexpectedly that week (some things are more important than contesting).

We were lucky to find Albert PA3GWC able and willing to help us out these first hours of the mixed mode contest (see previous post). The first hour however was a struggle as Albert was not used to the setup and software we use in the contest. This meant our rates were a lot lower than last year. We slowly approached last year's #QSO as we got going during the following hours however.

PG8M working CW while PD7YY is taking a power potion for the next shift 

The setup was the same as the previous years. We set up our station on a campground using only wire antennas for 160-80-40m and a wire beam (hex) for 20-15-10m. The weather was fine - no snow or heavy rains this time. We did get some storm which meant we had to lower the hexbeam during the night. Luckily by the time we needed it again in the morning the wind had died down.

Weather improved Sunday morning - hex was up again

As always we had made an operating plan based on the results of last year and QSO data we collected of the weeks preceding the contest. During the contest we used this as a guideline, checking the band conditions and band activity against it.

"Control room" - using data to guide us

The high bands were a disaster. We did not expect a lot but hoped for some opening on 15m. In the end we only worked 2 stations on 15m - like we did on 10m last year. We did not even try 10m this time.

In the end we are pleased with the results though. One band less means less multipliers but the QSO rate was good. We managed to log even a few more QSOs than in 2017 - a volume we were very pleased with then. This is even more remarkable considering our slow start.

Let's see what our error rate is and how the competitors fared. Results will be published in June...
  

Starting PACC 2018 as PG55G

The Dutch contest PACC has started and runs until tomorrow 12h CET. 

We have our wire antennas set up at a campsite in Gelderland (GD) and are active as PG55G. We are starting on 20m CW with guest operator PA3GWC - replacing PG8M for the first hours on CW.

Hexbeam and inverted V's for 40-80-160m

Guest operator PA3GWC with PD7YY

Try to catch PG55G

This year YNOMY will participate in the PACC contest once more. 

We will be using the callsign PG55G again from our favourite campsite in Gelderland (GD). 

We will be using all sorts of wire antennas in our field day set-up and hope to make it into the top 3 of the MOST category again - perhaps we will be able to make it to the top position for the third time.

We did it again

The final results of the PACC 2017 contest came in today.

We participated as PC55C in the multi operator single TX category and as we already expected from the preliminary results we won by a wide margin - almost 1.5x the score of our next competitor. 

With conditions clearly worse than last year we managed to set a score that is only 10k lower than our highscore of 2016.

The YNOMY sheep are impressed..

Preliminary results of PACC 2017

We have finished checking our log data and are happy to conclude that we have done *very* well this year: our preliminary results are actually HIGHER than our final results last year (when we won).

Band conditions were clearly less favorable than last year - with the higher bands hardly open. In 2016 we scored 35 multipliers on 10m and this year only 2 (-33). We also scored less multipliers on 15m (-14) but we compensated most of the loss on the other bands ending with only 24 multiplier less than last year on 333 multipliers. 

We managed to make more QSOs than last year, much to our surprise - as we were already very pleased with those results. We went from 1564 (post-check 2016) to 1705 (pre-check 2017) QSOs. 

Remember that these are preliminary results that have been filtered on dupes but not on other errors - like call or exchange mismatches. Last year we lost 4% of the QSOs in the final check. This included a few multipliers. The final score was 5,5% less than the pre-check score.

If this is exemplary for "our" error rate than our score will be somewhere around 535k to 540k. This is less than the 558k we scored last year but judging from the feedback of other participants, we did extremely well.

It is our of our hands now.. we will have to wait and see what the final outcome will be.


Callsign: PC55C
Category: MULTI-OP ALL HIGH MIXED ONE


Band     Qso    Cancelled  Dup  Point  Penalty  Mult        Score
160M     135            0    0    135        0    37
 80M     491            0    5    485        0    73
 40M     496            0    7    489        0    90
 20M     483            0   15    467        0    86
 15M     126            0    1    125        0    45
 10M       4            0    0      4        0     2
-----------------------------------------------------------------
        1735            0   28   1705        0   333       567765

PC55C - PACC 2017 in pictures

We have just finished our fourth PACC. It was a challenging one as we were keen to improve on our performance of last year but the bands were not in a shape to make that an easy task. Last year we had some openings on 10m and quite good 15m propagation. This year we had to rely more on the lower bands. The flow was quite different from last year.

We will have to analyse our log file some more to make claims about our success but in the mean time we can share with you some images of PACC 2017 @PC55C.

Just like in our previous attempts, we have used a field day set-up. We prepared the low band wire antennas on Friday afternoon on a campsite we also used in 2015 and 2016.

Our 26m high center support pole for 160m and 80m 

An improvement over last year was our new center pole. We used the -very heavy- Spiderbeam 26m pole instead of the 18m version. We have seen better results on 160m and 80m, so we think it helps (but the impact of propagation variation is hard to filter of course).

We have used the 18m pole for the 40m inverted V this year. Last year we put it on a 12m version - so it was a bit higher as well. 

Support poles and sheep - an interesting combination

When we arrived at the campsite we saw - to our surprise - sheep grazing the field we were going to use. Assuming they would not nibble on the guy wires we followed our original plan but we did keep the coax a bit more than sheep height off the ground.

The sheep kept their distance initially but soon they got used to us

Last year we stayed in a cabin near the field. It was already rented out however, so the owners kindly offered us a cabin they use as an office when the camping is open - inside a large barn.

A comfortable spot but it did present us some coax challenges as the antennas were quite a bit further away. It turned out that a lot of the spare coax was not good enough and we just made it connecting the usable segments together. 

Our 2017 shack - weather proof under a double roof

In the same barn they store a few camper vans. One of them was available for us to sleep in. 

A camper van for us to use as bedroom

Saturday morning we arrived at the camp site. We added our last antenna: the portable hexbeam for 20-15-10 and were ready for some action.

The tried and trusted portable hexbeam

Some impressions of our team in action:

PG8M behind some random trophies PG8M behind some random trophies

PD7YY listening carefully

The operations center - our planning table

The table above shows you some of the data we have used planning our operation. We always come prepared, using data of our previous attempts and recent propagation information. The plan we make before the contest serves as our guiding light. We use the plan and the propagation as it unfolds (experienced behind the radio but also from sources like the cluster) to make our band and mode decisions.

We had a lot of fun and apart from the normal issues like connectors not working properly and a 12m support pole tipping over (no damage), everything went smoothly. Propagation was rather typical and made this quite a different contest compared to last year. We used more CW and wasted less time on the higher bands. We did miss the short skip propagation for a nice phone sprint in the last hours of the contest - as we had last year.

Sunday at 12 UTC we switched off the radio and started to pack. There was quite a bit of work ahead to take down all the antennas, poles, guy wires, coax. Luckily the weather had improved - the sun was out and most of the snow had melted.

The sheep were following our steps

Two hours after the contest we left the campground as it was before - like nothing happened this weekend.

An empty field once again (on the right side the cabin we used in the previous 2 years)

We will update this blog once we have had a time to look at our performance.

Watch for PC55C in PACC

This year we will be competing in the PACC ham radio contest for the fourth time in a row. The last two times we managed to get into the top 3 (2015 2nd place as PE55E and 2016 1st place as PA55A) and we are hoping to get a good result again this year.

Just like the last two times we will be using a special call for the occasion: PC55C.

A lot of things will remain the same (at least.. that is what we think will happen - there are always surprises with our field day approach). We will be using the same antennas as last year and operate from the same campsite.

There is one planned improvement and one slight setback. We are considering using a higher center support pole for our 160/80m dipoles (26m instead of 18m). That might just improve our performance on those low bands a tiny bit. The slight setback is that our former shack is rented out already. This means we will be operating quite a bit further away from the field we use for the antennas. So there will be some serious lengths of coax involved this year.

As long as the weather is not too extreme we will most certainly enjoy ourselves. We hope to get you in the log!

73 de PD7YY, PG8M & PH0NO aka PC55C

Presenting PACC proof

A few weeks ago PD7YY and PG8M went to pick-up our PACC trophy. 

So we can now proudly present to you the proof of YNOMY's highest contest achievement so far:

We are still pondering over our next step. Are we going to beat the highest multi-multi achievement of CQWW or should we aim for WPX all-time high?

PACC 2016 results preview and PACC 2015 trophy

Things are looking good for our ranking in PACC 2016. The list of robot scores has been published. In 2015 we used the call PE55E, this year we participated with PA55A.

YNOMY participated with the call PA55A

Trying to learn all we could learn from our first two attempts (2014 and 2015) seems to have paid off. Now we will have to wait for all the log checks to find out how accurate we and our contacts have been. Last year our error% was very low.

This is a good time to look back at the award ceremony of PACC 2015. We came in second in the MOST category. PD7YY and PG8M went to the ceremony to claim our trophy. Below you can see both Marcel's looking proud (well, at least one Marcel is) showing off the huge trophy.

YNOMY active in PACC as PA55A

Watch out for us during the PA contest this weekend. We are working from the same campsite we used last year, using the special call PA55A.

Just like we have done during our first two years, we are building up a temporary station for this contest from which we will be able to work all contest bands 160-10m. A field day operation in winter. Luckily weather conditions seem acceptable.

Low band wire antennas installed

Last year we reached second place in the multi operator single radio category. We hope we will be able to get into the top 3 again.

If you hear us, give us a shout. We need a report + serial number and we will give you a report and "GD" for Gelderland (our province).

PG8M and PD7YY installing the hexbeam

YNOMY reached second place in PACC

Today the results of the PACC contest we operated in earlier this year was published. It tuns out that we managed to reach the second place in our category (multi operator, single radio) with our special call PE55E. 

We are actually just a stone's throw behind number one (6 QSOs, 11 multipliers difference).

We are very proud we were able to achieve this in our second serious attempt in this contest. It is remarkable we came this far if you consider we are working from a caravan with a temporary set up of mainly wire antennas - not a big gun contest station.  

PACC 2015 results - a visual impression

We have visualized our log data of PACC 2015. It gives a nice impression of how we went on in the 24 hours of the contest (12:00 CET - 12:00 CET)

QSO rate per hour per band

The QSO rate per hour / band shows a 24h clock with a couple of peaks primarily on the low bands. 

Initially we focused on the higher bands. We used 10m sparsely aiming for NA/SA (see map below) in the early evening. We were mainly on 15m and 20m until around 18h CET.

The first peak is around 19h CET on 40m, followed by a peak around 20:30 on 80m. During the night there are smaller peaks on 160, 80 and 40m. After visiting 20m and 15m (aiming for Asia), we ended the contest with another nice run on 40m around 10:30 CET. 

Animation of our contacts logged over the 24h of the contest

The animation above shows you how PE55E went around the globe in the 24h of the contest. The high bands are represented by red (10m), orange (15m) and yellow (20m). While the low bands are represented by green (40m), blue (80m) and black (160m). The stars indicate CW contacts - the dots SSB contacts.

PACC 2015 - YNOMY's Contest Summary

Pre-contest preparation

We prepared ourselves a bit better than last year (which already was a lot better than the first year). We got ourselves a nice temporary special call PE55E and we constructed and tested a number of different wire antennas well before the contest (last year M was still working on the 160m antenna a few hours into the contest).

Pre-contest modeling of our wire antennas

M had arranged a proper location at a camping ground near to where he lives and - importantly for this contest - in our province of Gelderland. The place definitely was an upgrade of the cold and windy hut we were in last year. It even featured WiFi so we had online cluster info in N1MM.

Our shack during PACC 2015

M started the installation of the antenna park together with his station manager on Friday. They installed the three main poles - 12m, 18m and 12m high - that were holding the wire dipoles for 160m (supported by all three poles), 80m (inverted v from the center pole) and 40m (inverted v from the nearest pole).

Low band wire antennas

We tested this setup before (more info in this post). Modelling showed this setup results in more gain on 160m and less gain on 40m than last year. As we would be running 3 to 4 times the power of last year on the low bands we weren't too focused on getting the maximum gain though.

Final preparations 

Saturday morning NO and YY arrived to complete the contest station,  adding an end fed for 20m, a hex beam for 20-15-10m and a yagi for 10m. As NO had to leave Sunday morning before the end of the contest - taking the hex and the yagi - we set up an extra 5/8 vertical for 15m we built and tested just 2 weeks before the contest.

Our beams: portable hexbeam and home brew 3 element yagi

When we finished setting up the station we had 7 antennas at our disposal - quite an impressive set-up for a temporary station. We were running 300-400 watts PEP into them via an icom 756P3 hooked up to a pc running N1MM.

Contest operation

We manned the station for 24h by sleeping in shifts. The camping provided us with two extra sleeping places conveniently located outside the noisy shack.
M was our CW operator while YY and NO took care of the phone contacts.

M on CW logging in N1MM with YY following the proceedings closely

As the weather was much friendlier than last year we had no calamities (as blogged about in this post). All went rather smoothly. Conditions on the high bands seemed a bit better than we remembered from last year. We will have to compare our logs to see how this worked out.

A better preparation allowed us to operate with minimal switching times between operators. We used our experiences from last year to choose the right band and mode at the right time and we had more power at our disposal on the low bands (300-400w as opposed to 100w last year).

This has resulted in far more contacts and more multipliers than last year. We logged approx. 800 contacts last year during our first real try in this contest and came in 6th place. This year we set our goal at 1000 QSOs and surpassed that by a considerable margin.

We will add more information about our results once we have taken the time to run our log through the PACC log robot and compare our results in more detail with the results of last year (numbers, multipliers, dx per band).