IQ4A: "Capra" History
We are on top of an hill called Monte Capra (Goat Mount) at
444 meters a.s.l. over looking the city of Bologna with an excellent take off
all around 360 degrees, due to the very big slope toward the State Side we do
have very low angles of radiation and we tend to work west coast easy and normally
the band closes later (an hour or so).
The radio station is under ground in a concrete prefabricate structure which
accomodate (during the contest) all 6 radio stations, a main one for the runner
and all others for multilpiers.
Today, when we enter the WWDX Contest, our team is composed of over twenty
operators subdivided into work groups, groups for pile-up, section for runner
station management, multiplier search, local PC network and data entry management
group.
A must for a station like IQ4A, which operates out of an rather common country
and which certainly has no specific advantages as regards propagation, is to
absolutely never miss any multipliers.
In fact, for our multiplier search purposes, we today use at least 2 operators
with 2 RX and 2 antennas on each and every active band!!
Our contest management software handles informing and authorizing the search
operators involved in compliance with the 10-minute rule.
The checks are also made on the eventual schedules of the skeds in order to
further optimize their timing.
Even the runner station operates with multiple antennas pointing in different
directions.
Great emphasis has also been placed on the dependability of the station, the antennas and the use of single-band yagis and quads set up at different heights, with a technician constantly on duty to handle the checking and substitution of anything which might result defective, so as to avoid distracting the operators from their concentration on the contest itself.
These are just a few, simple examples of how a team can optimize its performance and make the best use of the main interests of each member of the team to achieve good overall results -- with the real glue being the harmony and team spirit built up together in so many contest participations.
We begin preparing for the contest at the beginning
of April, overhauling and setting up the antennas, installing new antennas and
spending a lot of our weekends throughout the year to accomplish it.
Notwithstanding all the work done both for voice and CW, luck and propagation
conditions actually favoured us on only four occasions:
- WWDX 1980 (I4RYC)
- WPX 1980 (9A1ONU)
- WWDX 90 (IQ4A)
- WWDX 94 (IQ4A)
this last, first ever CW in Italy.
The above refers to contest participations since 1978, the year in which we first took part with this team in the WWDX in the multi-operator category.
Over the years, experience and continuous work to improve the conditions of the station have made us competitive today in Europe -- and propagation-permitting, also at a world-wide level.
IQ4A Team now IR4X
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