PACC 2015

I did not expected much of the PACC, the annual contest from the Netherlands,
because of my antenna.

One wire of the 300 ohm ribbon of the Inverted V is damaged.
With no wind all is OK, but . . .
Frequently the wire does not connect briefly, when the ribbon moves in the wind.
While transmitting the SWR jumps briefly and on receive, the signal disappears shortly.
With S&P I have to repeat my call or exchange sometimes when the wind blows,
In several other contests in the last weeks, I could make QSO's with 8 mW, when the
propagation is very good, and there is NO wind. hi.

I started late and managed to make two QSO's, using Search and Pounce with 3.6 watts on 14 MHz on Saturday. (TA and UR)

In the first QSO on Sunday morning on 21 MHz my call was copied immediately correct
with just 360 mW. But then it took more than 5 times and 3 Watts to give my exchange, 599 UT.
When the ribbon moves, the signal briefly disappears.
After the QSO was completed, I realized that the power was NOT the problem,
because my call was received with 360 mW.

After that QSO's, I made 2 x 5 QSO's  in two runs of 10 minutes with S&P, all on 21 MHz. Not bad.

I did not expected to make many QSO's on 7 MHz, since this is a busy band.
Also I was convinced, that giving CQ would not work with the antenna in this state.
So I answered a CQ on 7 MHz.
Immediately after completing this QSO (with S&P), I was called by an other station.
The station went up in frequency, so I followed and answered.
After the QSO, 5 other stations came along, one after the other, without my calling CQ.

This is very unusual for my, because in major CW contests, I often use the lowest possible power with S&P.  hi.

With no (or little) wind, I now decided to call CQ.
So in the last hour of the contest I made many QSO's by calling CQ, between a few occasional gusts of wind.
In total I made 50 QSO's. WOW.

Even 2 QSO's were made with more than 1000 Miles per Watt, using QRPp.
I had a great time.