CQ WPX CW – SO AB, HP @ EI7M

Good Afternoon from a pub in Cork,

This weekend I was fortunate enough to have operated at EI7M in Ireland. I have never been to this station, or even operated a contest from EI until now and I was pleasantly surprised at the results.

IMAGE: EI3KD

I flew, Birmingham to Cork on Thursday before the contest. Flying Ryanair is always interesting, in that after standing in a “holding area” for an hour after the departure time the plane had only just arrived. Eventually I landed in Cork where Dave EI9FBB was able to pick me up and host me at his place overnight. The next morning I was off to EI7M.

When I arrived I had a brief introduction to the station and I was away. Pre-contest I made around 350 QSO’s as EI/M0SDV on HF, but to my surprise there was a great 6m opening where I made about 100 QSO’s around Europe. I even dabbled with a bit of FT8 and worked USA, which is a 6m first for me.

Into the contest, Pile ups were great however rate not all that high. There was QSB present all weekend which somewhat hampered any ability to work quickly as by the time I was receiving 5NN, a lot of station dropped into the noise for the serial. Nevertheless, it was great fun to be able to run a reasonable rate. I have commented to a number of people how well JA were coming through. 15m Opened up for most of the day and I was able to run loads of JA’s which is something I’ve never done in this part of the world before.

W’s were in an out throughout the contest.

I have to say I was disappointed with the performance of 10m throughout. Signals were not loud nor was there any rate. Obviously 15m was where the action was. I have theorized that due to the decent conditions all round, people were picking their band and staying, opposed to moving around.

All in, a great contest experience. My score, is higher than the current EI SO record for this contest, However I suspect that after adjudication I will have fallen short of the required amount for that record. I have however set an new record for the “Youth” category.

Call: EI7M
Operator(s): MØSDV
Station: EI7M

Class: SOAB HP
Class Overlay: Youth
QTH: IO51VW
Operating Time (hrs): 36
Location: Northern Europe