As a fairly new EUDXF member (#967) I volunteered to activate one of the Dutch special event stations for the 33th anniversary of the EUDXF. I was curious to see what a special call can do compared to my ‘ordinary’ call.
When I signed up, I already indicated that my activity will be CW only, and with somewhat limited time due to the fact that I work 5 days/week and have a long commuting distance. This would mean only activity in the evenings and in the weekends. At night, man-made noise is quite an issue at my location (80 and 160m hardly usable), so in a sense it was a bit of a challenge.
Anyway, in the first two days of November I had some time and I could start off right away. The first 250 QSOs were easily made. Demand was great and I could raise some nice runs. In the weeks after I witnessed the following things.
- Demand gradually decreased
- Demand for EUDXF is predominantly coming from European stations (not a real surprise I guess)
- Conditions were not good. Made 23 QSOs on 18 MHz, and never used a higher band
- Number of QSOs were in the end nicely spread over 80, 40, 30 and 20m. This was more like a coincidence than a planned thing …
- Made a 30 minutes entry in the one hour UKEICC 80m CW contest (29 QSOs). A long callsign, albeit a special one, is not an advantage in such occasion …
- CW rules, but for higher volumes of QSOs you have to be active in other modes as well (not my cup of coffee)
Given the ability of my station (Mosley minibeam @ 10m, 30/40m vertical, 80m inv.L) I think I delivered the call to those who were really looking for it (in particular the 33EUDXF Award hunters). I had a few openings to North America and was called by some nice DX on 30m around grayline time. With a gross number of 1083 QSOs (35 dupes) I am quite satisfied. I recommend this activity to anyone who wants to play around with a special callsign. Next year’s Px34EUDXF stations will provide the fun again.
Station:
Elecraft K3, SPE 1K-FA, uKeyerII, Begali Signature paddle, N1MM+logger with ClubLog real-time upload by G7VJR
Enno Korma,
PF5X.
November 2019