pa0r

I arrived home safely after a 14 hour trip. Most of that time was spent waiting. 1 hour 30 minutes in a road block in Las Palmas on the way to the airport in the morning, 1 more hour on Las Palmas airport, almost 3 hours on the plane to Madrid, 6 hours on Barajas airport, two hours 50 minutes flight to Amsterdam. Not to forget the 1 1/2 hour drive home.

Looking back at the operation we can be quite satisfied with the results. Working in the multi/multi class we made almost 10k qsos and almost 20 Million points. The location in the city of Las Palmas turned out to be sub-optimal for multiband contesting. Especially 160 meters , where I spent almost 8 hours was bad, if not impossible to operate. We ended up listening on the 20 meters quad radiator, and even then only the big guns could be heard. Many thanks to those who took the time to contact us using the 'callsign guessing procedure'.

20 and 15 were good, 40 reasonable and 80 mediocre. 10 meters was hardly open from our location at EA8URL.

 600 meters higher than our location EF8A was working multi/2, and some test contacts before the contest showed that they were at least 10 dB stronger than us on all bands, resulting in a score of over 30 Million...

 After the contest we were able to visit them, and we could see why. This mountain top station is a professional job, and they will certainly be a force to reckon with in the years to come!

 Anyway, we had loads of fun, and the team proved to be excellent.  I am looking forward to next year's CQWW-CW...

 Rein PA0R