ARRL 10m Contest, VK1AA/M December 2004

Since moving to Sydney, I always wanted to "try" local hilltop, approx. 70m above sea level at Balgowlah Heights. The ARRL 10m contest was an ideal opportunity!	Operating from national park means no noise, no smoke, and absolutely nothing laying on the ground! Therefore battery operated mobile station is the only way to go. Second limitation was operating time - due to business commitments I only had two lot of 4 hours on Sunday :-(
	The radio was FT-920 pushing approx 50W into 2el light weight yagi designed and optimized bu Popa, YU7EF. I needed as much gain as I could get ! 7m mast was attached between car door and drivers seat allowing manual rotation . One and half hour after local sunrise the band finally open to ZL. First US able to copy my CW signal was K1PT in Florida. First SSB was WC4E. Surprisingly enough, once band open to US I was able to work most station on first or second call. P40ZZ was nice catch too! At times I was even able to call cq and get steady run. Total of 70 US and 25 states in less than 3 hours. To preserve battery supply I had to CQ as little as possible - not the best strategy in contest.
The goodies: VR2BG, BD1, EX2X, few UN, ZC4LI and A45WD. The strongest signal on the band: UT2IY.	Afternoon shift was even more exciting! It was easy to run JA's and even hold frequency while running Europeans. But the openings were spotty and unpredictable and 10m sounded more like 6m band. Total operating time : 8 hours. Logged 70 US, 70 JA and 75 Eu. 36 DXCC and 242 QSO.

73,

Nick VK1AA