CQWW CW 2018 as AT3A

Background:
Quest for better contest time participation was/is always on. Many requests in common interest groups went in vain for group operation due to one or other problems. I thought of preparing a tiny contest station at my native place near Mangalore on the south west coast of India as i had no hope at my home QTH. So the idea of AT3A was born few months ago. Unlike serious full-time contest station, this would be visited only few times a year and some restrictions on antenna placement and noise from proximity to small town area.

Many visits to this place which is around 320 Kms from Bangalore were made to fabricate and establish antenna support system, carry equipment etc since June. WPC permission for QTH change for 3 month duration mainly to operate contests had come on time. However, till CQWW SSB i could not get station up. When setting home station, one will not notice efforts required as it is over period of years that we develop efficiency. Now trying to achieve the same type of efficiency at a new place in comparatively short few months became a daunting task on self. All certain done, CQWW SSB last month could not get me much scores at all. My TS590 RX was suffering from sensitivity issue of some sought.

Sorting out TS590 RX was on priority. I had to check resources websites, fuse blown issue etc. However, troubleshooting took me nowhere and probably requires some more efforts and help from techie friends.

Equipment: 
TS590 with SDR play as pan adapter
Homebrewed W6PQL Amplifier
Hexbeam
Vertical and inverted L for 40 and 80

Preparation:
Antenna support base was around 25 feet with plan of around 40 feet tilt pipe for Hexbeam. During the first lift, the pipe started developing bend and then we had to cut the pipes to go only upto total of 33 feet from ground. For SSB contest, verticals were not on focus. But for CW contest, I placed 40 mtr vertical and 80 mtr inverted L on same spiderpole of 40 ft. This antenna was located at backside of house on old cowshed building. Getting to roof was a problem as it was made of clay (Mangalore tiles). Many of tiles were broken in the process of placing antenna and tuning :(.
On the first go these verticals seemed to work fine. but suddenly they started to show higher SWR. Changing Choke and Coax did not work. Just a day before contest, i pulled back vertical wires to check and found that at around 20 feet above from base, wires came very close and fused together to form short (looked similar to twinlead wire). Ahhh.. This made me to remove 80 mtr wire and limit operation to only 40mtr on that vertical pole. With 4 elevated ground radials, all SWRs showed OK and ready for Contest!. We had huge thunderstorms and lightening strikes to nearby place in the evening followed by unusually heavy rains at this time of year. Around 500 mtrs away electrical lines got cut off with a transformer malfunction. Fortunately, nothing happened to the antennas and station i had placed and power restored at my QTH.


Contest Day 1:
It happened to be day after major festival (Full moon day in the month of Diwali) here. All of our small town was decorated with running lights and loud music was playing most of the time etc. Major blow from RX noise  as I could not hear much during first 12 hrs.There were series of power outages interrupting any possible run i could have made. Total QSOs for the day were low around 370 with mostly S&P.

Contest Day 2:
This day started on much better signals and first big run came around 7UT to 9 UT and then second best run between 11 to 14 UTC. Entire day 20 and 15 mtrs were wide open. When NA stations started appearing around 12 UTC on 20mtrs, they were similarly strong as EU. Band spectrum was brutally occupied.
After 14:30 UTC, signals started fading on 20mtrs and 40/80 showed increased conditions. Day two added around 630 QSOs.

Summary: 
In total, I did just over 1000 QSOs with high power category running around 400Watts. This is still 200QSOs lesser than my 50W low power contest entry of 2015 (https://www.3830scores.com/showrumor.php?arg=oHaXzofymaivL). Lot of rooms for improvement for sure.

Following is the final count:

Band     QSOs     ZN   Cty  
    7      267     21   71

    14     384     19   53   
    21     355     19   56   
    28       3     2    3   
 Total     1009    61   193

Claimed Score: 710,438

Thank you all for the Qs and see you next time

VU2XE

Some highlights:

Traditional Kerala drummers ("Pancha Vadyam" -5 instruments) performing on the street near QTH for festival few hours before contest:

My antennas:

Band overflow during the contest as seen by my SDR Play - not a Hz spare :).