9M2/G4ZFE/P - AS-072 - CQ WW 2002

I have already described Pulau Pangkor and the QTH that I operated from - Teluk Dalam. My usual contest station in Kuala Lumpur was unavailable for CQ WW in 2002 so I had to find another QTH. The QTH on Pangkor Island has a great take off to the North (JA and W) and a good take off to the North West (EU).

The photo shows my YL (Nipa) outside the bungalow - Room 118 - that we stayed in. The bungalow is the nearest to the beach and has fewer neighbours for any TVI issues.

The photos shows the antenna that I used - Force 12 Sigma 5 vertical (20m to 10m including WARC). The ground was too hard for the base of the antenna so I used a wooden sign as a support. I unfourtunately had insufficient co-ax to place the antenna directly on the beach but the antenna was less than 10 metres from the sea.

The photo shows the excellent take off due North to W and JA. The site is also very quiet during the night when the resort workers are not whizzing around on motorbikes.

The photo shows the operating position. Propagation during the contest was very poor and only 162 QSOs were made in a Single band 15m Low Power entry. The average hourly QSO rate was less than 20 QSOs/hour! 15m closed to Europe by 00:00 local (14:00 UTC) and after that only African stations were heard. There were some excellent signals from the African DX-peditions but breaking through the Eu and NA pileups were difficult.