TG0AA - 1995 ARRL DX SSB Contest from Guatemala by Scott Neader, KA9FOX e-mail: sneader@mail.ctenet.com web: http://www.infoanalytic.com/ka9fox Operating TG0AA in the '95 ARRL DX SSB contest was my first experience as a single operator in a DX contest. I never dreamed the end result would be a new world record, especially since a half hour before the contest I didn't even know where I would be operating or even what catagory I'd be entering! The sequence of events that eventually led me to operating from Guatemala began when I helped operate K3LR during the ARRL DX SSB contest in 1994. I was one of the two 15 meter operators (the other was VE3EJ), and I ran across Juan, TG9AJR many times during the contest. Juan was doing a single band 15 effort, and we chatted before the contest and also a few times during the contest when things got slow. I got to meet Juan less than two months later, when he visited our annual "Sultans of Shwing" Thursday night party suite in Dayton. During the weekend, he asked me to come down to Guatemala to operate a contest. At the time, I was single and really couldn't think of a reason NOT to take him up on his offer. We exchanged e-mail, phone calls and faxes on a regular basis and the trip began to take shape. Juan arranged for me to operate the contest at the QTH of Gerry, TG9GI - the same place that NL7GP operated from during CQWW DX CW in 1994. With an Alpha, a TH6DXX at 70 feet, and some wires for 40 and 80, Gerry's QTH would be ideal. I'd just need to bring along something for 160 and borrow Juan's TS-440 and I'd be set! Well, at least that was the plan. Two weeks before my trip, Juan called me with bad news. Gerry had decided to operate the contest himself. He felt the station was not suitable for an all-band effort like I was planning (due to lack of good low-band antennas) and he wished to enter the contest himself in the QRP category. But Juan also had some good news. The company Juan worked for had just purchased a house and some land at the top of a mountain near Guatemala City. Juan explained to me that Guatemala City is surrounded by mountains and that it would be very advantageous to operate from atop the mountain. There would be plenty of room for wire antennas and a 90 foot tower was expected to be erected the week before the contest. Once again, the Internet contest reflector proved to be an invaluable resource. I posted a message asking for input on what beam to bring and how to get it there. I also asked for ideas on low band antennas. I received dozens of replies, including one from WB2K, who happened to have a Cushcraft A3S with the 40 meter kit for sale. He had already modified the antenna for shipping, so it fit into a small box plus two 4 foot shipping tubes. Paul, W0AIH, constructed a simple 80/160 inverted vee and a matching network for me, and it appeared I was all set. Three days before I was to leave, I got another interesting piece of news from Juan. His company had asked him to fly to Chicago for a meeting and he wouldn't be in Guatemala when I arrived. Even though I don't speak a word of Spanish, he assured me everything would be O.K. His father, who speaks just a little English, would pick me up at the airport. Juan also gave me some good "advice" about working with the customs agents in Guatemala. "Whatever you do, don't tell them that it is radio equipment," he said. "Tell them it is computer equipment and the antennas are just scrap metal." He also gave me some helpful information about "tipping" the customs officers if it became "necessary." To say that I was a little worried would be a major understatement! I left for Guatemala on the Tuesday before the contest. (As a side note, on the Friday before I left, I asked my girlfriend, Laurie, to marry me. She said yes!) At the airport, I checked the antenna shipping tubes and a very large, heavy suitcase and carried on a heavy duffle bag. All three items slightly exceeded the airline's size specifications, but fortunately they didn't notice. The flight went without a hitch and I arrived in Guatemala on time. After departing the plane, I instantly met a huge "pile-up" at the immigrations desk. Twenty minutes later it was time to try and find my antenna and suitcase. After about five minutes of waiting for the baggage carousel to begin turning, I spotted a uniformed man walking across the airport lobby with MY antenna shipping tubes. "This is not good," I thought to myself! I flipped my duffel bag over my shoulder and hustled over to catch up with the man. Hoping he spoke English, I said, "Excuse me... that's my package. Is there something wrong?" "Oh, this is yours? Here you go," he replied. It turns out he worked for the airlines and was bringing the tube to the airline information table because it wouldn't fit onto the baggage carousel. Whew! When the big suitcase came around the carousel, I realized I couldn't carry all that stuff by myself, so I rented a cart from a kid for a buck. Once everything was loaded onto the cart, I reluctantly made my way for customs. Armed men in military-type uniforms carefully glanced at each person as they filed past tables set up for inspections. For as long as I watched, I didn't see anyone stopped, so I took a deep breath, tried not to look like a criminal (why did I feel like one, anyway?), and headed towards them. As I approached the custom officials, I spotted Juan's father in a crowd of people outside, just past the guards (he was easy to spot, as he was holding up a blue TG9AJR / YCCC QSL card). I made it all the way to the door when a guard spewed some angry Spanish at me and pointed me off to the side towards an examination table. My worst nightmare had come true, I thought. The guards didn't seem to be in any particular hurry to talk to me or to inspect any of my baggage, so I just stood there. After a little bit, Juan's father began making his way through the crowd and towards the door nearest to me. He was pointing towards my baggage and trying to tell me something. "Cart... cart," he repeated as he pointed towards my cart. It took me a half-minute before I realized that the cart was the cause of my problems. You see, you can't take the carts outside of the building! Totally relieved, I unloaded my stuff, left the cart, and walked right out of the airport without any further hassle. Whew!!! Due to the language barrier, Juan's father and I spoke very little during the ride to the house. Once inside, I was introduced to Juan's mother and their housekeeper / cook. I was then shown to my bedroom where we dumped all my stuff. Juan's mom then uttered that one word I longed to hear... "Radio?" I eagerly shook my head and said, "Yes!" She showed me to Juan's bedroom, where his equipment was located. Immediately I powered up his TS-440, got N6TR's logging program fired up and hit the air as TG/KA9FOX. With Juan at work during the day and me not feeling safe enough to venture outside on my own, playing radio was the activity of choice. And so it went for the next several days. I'd get up whenever I felt like it (or the roosters across the street made me), played radio, ate breakfast, showered, played radio, ate lunch, played radio, ate dinner, talked to Juan when he got home, played radio and slept. Nirvana? Quite possibly. Juan snuck out of work early on Friday, the day of the contest. The tower company reported to him that the tower had been erected and everything was a go for the mountain-top operation. Around 17z we packed Juan's Mazda and headed for the hills. The roads were very tough and really should have been negotiated with a four-wheel drive. As we neared the top, Juan pulled over and groaned a little. "What's up?" I asked. He pointed to a house and said, "That is the place. I am sure of it. But there is no tower." We got out and checked out the place. Sure enough, there were holes for the tower and guys, and four sections of the tower were stacked next to the house. It appeared the tower company may have stretched the truth a little by saying the tower had been erected. Yeah, just a little. Since the location appeared to be a good one, I decided to use a tree for the dipole and figure out some way to put the beam on one or two sections of the tower. Juan had to head back into town, so at about 19z he left me on the mountain to begin putting the station together. I pulled out the instructions for the modified A3S and went to work. It took me a good 2.5 hours to figure out the modifications and to get the beam together. (Yes, I know I should have tried to put it together while in the U.S. - next time!) Just then, Juan arrived, bringing with him some much needed cold beverages and some good news, too. He had called some friends of his that work on towers, and they promised to come up to try to help put part of the tower up. Juan and I then began to string up the 80/160 dipole. Things were looking good. As if by design, almost immediately after tying off the last leg of the dipole, Juan's tower friends arrived. This was about 23:15z... less than one hour before the contest! They quickly began to bolt the tower sections together and to plot their strategy for rope-guying it. Since I've never seen a tower erected, I felt totally useless, so I began to put the station together inside the house. I located power and whipped together the rig, amp, antenna switch and tuner. While the crew worked on the beam, I figured I could test out the dipole. I kicked on the rig, switched to 80 meters and WHAM... something was giving me a 60-over-S9 reading. I tried 160 and heard the same thing. I tried 40 and it was still at least 40 over. Then 20... only slightly better. I was a victim of some very nasty broadcast interference! I called Juan into the shack to discuss some options. It was quickly narrowed down to either continuing to work on putting the beam up, then operating a single high-band, hoping the beam would be less susceptable to the interference, or to pack up everything and operate either a single-band or an all-band (minus 160) from Juan's home. I took another look at situation outside with the tower and antenna, and decided it would be a better bet to just pack up and head to Juan's place. Juan explained the situation to his friends, and as the rest of the world started calling "CQ CONTEST," we started breaking the station down. On the drive down the mountain, Juan and I talked about my options. At home, Juan has a two-element Butternut Butterfly tri-bander, fixed north, at about 20 feet and a Butternut vertical on the house. For an amp, Juan had borrowed an FL-2100 (about 400w out) from TG9GI. Although I probably wouldn't be competitive with that set-up, especially without 160 meters, I still wanted to try an all-band effort. Juan thought I'd have better luck trying a single band. He explained how well the station has played in the past on 15, and encouraged me to give that a try. I decided to wait until we got to his house. If the amp didn't cause TVI or other problems, I'd do the contest as a 15 meter single band. If, on the other hand, the amp did cause problems, I'd do a low-power, all-band effort. We made it back to Juan's place around 01:00z and quickly shuttled everything from his car to his bedroom. I made my first QSO at 01:12z with KB5XN in Oklahoma. I must have hit the east coast PacketCluster, because in the next five minutes, I worked 30 guys - many from the east coast - including (in order of appearance) K1KI, N2RM, WR3O, KY1H, AA3JU and W3LPL. That got the ol' rate meter cooking! Unfortunately, two minutes later the band took a big dive, yielding only 27 QSOs in the next 20 minutes (all in Ore., Cal., and Ariz), with the last QSO at 01:38z. It appeared that the amp wasn't causing any TVI and that the station was playing well, I decided to do the contest as a 15 meter single band. I went to 40 meters to hand out some QSOs there, and was amazed at the pile-ups I was able to generate with that Butternut! The guys that told me my prefix would add about 20 to 40 db to my signal were very correct. The first ten minutes there yielded 40 QSOs. I made almost 250 QSOs in a little over an hour before giving 80 meters a try. I was able to generate a pile-up there as well, but the rate was noticably slower. At 05:15z I set a watch-alarm and hit the sack. At 13:55z I woke up in panic. I had slept through the alarm! I turned on the rig and, of course, found the band wide open. I warmed up the amp, tuned it up on 15 meters, found a frequency, CQ'd and put my first station in the log at 14:01z. Stations consistenly called throughout the day until the band started to fold that evening. Rates ran from a high of 257 QSOs in the 19z hour to a low of 196 QSOs in the 23z hour. The band stayed open longer on Saturday night than it had the previous night. I managed 120 QSOs during the 01z hour (versus 63 Friday night) and even worked a few in the 02z hour. With the last station in the log at 02:18z and almost 20 minutes without a QSO, I bopped up to 20 meters to give some QSOs away there. With 15 meters playing so well, I wasn't surprised at the pile-up I soon generated on 20. After working 147 guys in 30 minutes I turned off the rig and got something to eat. Before I hit the sack, I worked quite a few more stations on 40 and 80. When I finally did go to bed, I set TWO alarms for 12:45z, just to make sure I didn't oversleep again. Did I say 12:45z? Chalk it up to inexperience, but after getting out of bed I casually turned on the rig and was surprised to find the band fairly open. I wiped the sleep out of my eyes and got on the air as soon as I could. After about an hour, several east coast stations stopped by to ask if I'd heard any Europe (which I hadn't). While they were able to work some Europe the previous morning, none were to be found that morning. Juan wandered in to see how I was doing and I relayed to him the "good" news. His reaction was to give me a "high five!" Rates were slower the second day, as expected, ranging from 95 QSOs the first hour (13z) to a high of 172 QSOs in the 21z hour. Several times during the day I moved for people who needed TG on other bands. A few times I even stayed on the band for a few minutes to bask in the pile up that would soon erupt. Of course, I WAS doing a single band 15 effort, so I didn't stay TOO long. Around 16z, George WB5VZL, who was operating at W5KFT, stopped by my frequency to schedule a 10 meter QSO. I asked him if he happened to know what the current ARRL DX SSB 15 meter records were. He told me he'd look them up and stop back later. True to his word, he came back and told me the North American Record was 606,879 and the World Record was 637,188. At that point I had 2900 QSOs and 57 mults (missing VO2, VE8 and VY1), giving me a score of about 495,900. Some quick calculations told me that if I didn't find any more mults, I'd need about 3550 QSOs to break the NA record, and about 3725 to break the World record. I wrote these numbers on a Post-It note and stuck it on the laptop. At 21:15z, I hit QSO number 3550, putting me over the North American record, which made me feel great. The biggest moment, however, arrived about an hour later, at 22:22z. After logging another 177 people, which was one of the busiest hours of the day, I put QSO number 3727 in the log, breaking the 15 meter DX World. Juan and his fiance, Jocelyn, stopped by to see how I was doing around 23z. While I continued to work people, I pointed to the Post-It note with the records on it. Then I pointed to my score on the screen and smiled. Juan's face just lit up and he gave me a "high five," then went to tell his parents of the feat. When the contest ended, I had 3894 QSOs in the log and 57 mults for a claimed score of 665,874. I also submitted a checklog for 748 non-15 meter QSOs (100 on 10m, 139 on 20m, 432 on 40m, and 77 on 80m). I met a couple of my friends from Wisconsin on 20 meters immediately after the contest. Shortly after we began our conversation, VY1JA broke in (representing one of my three missing multipliers). Jay told me he looked for me throughout the contest, and many times heard stations working me, but never once heard me. This trip was truly an emotional one for me. Words cannot express how scared I was travelling by myself to this country. I was also extremely disappointed with the problems of securing a location to operate from and by not being able to (competitively) enter as an all-band high-power entry as planned. These things aside, the trip was one of the most exciting things I have done in my life. Juan and his family, plus Gerry TG9GI all treated me like royalty during my stay. And what contester wouldn't have fun making almost 7000 contest and non-contest QSOs! Will I go back? Well, my license IS good until March of 1998, and I DO have a few frequent flyer miles that have to get used. Let me ask my wife.