Our FAIRS Counterpart in Ukraine Shares a Story about His Exploits with Ham Radio
As our name states we are definitely an international organization. Victor Goncharsky (US5WE/K1WE) lives in Ukraine along with this wife Helen. They are an integral part of FAIRS and have been since the beginning. As you can imagine life in Ukraine is unlike it has ever been before and sometimes it is a needed break to take part in something that brings you enjoyment and a bit of peace. Below is a story written by Victor about some of his exploits in the past two years.
Operation in IARU HF contests in 2023 and 2024 as a part of the HG7T team.
By Victor Goncharsky US5WE/K1WE
In May 2023, we (Alex UT7DX and myself) received an invitation from Tibor Nemeth HA7TM to take
part as guest operators of the HG7T team in the IARU HF contest, which was to be held on July 8-9,
2023.
We agreed and started preparing for the trip, fortunately, there were still two months left before the
competition.
Now, a little about the trip. We agreed to meet in Mukachevo, the native town of Alex UT7DX, on
Thursday 6 July and early in the morning on Friday 7 July to start the first part of the trip by train
Mukachevo – Chop.
Arriving in the border town of Chop in the pouring rain, we ran to the international terminal, bought
tickets for the Hungarian shuttle train Chop – Zahony, which makes several trips in the forward and
backward directions during the day, and after half an hour, having passed the border and customs
control, we arrived at the train station in the Hungarian border town of Zahony.
Volunteers from UNICEF and UNHCR are constantly on duty at the station, ready to help refugees
from Ukraine.
The next stage of the trip was the Zakhony-Debrecen train, tickets for which are free for citizens of
Ukraine. The Hungarian government has allocated 1.5 billion forints to the railways (MAV) for this.
We had to, as they usually do, only pay for the seat.
In the afternoon we were already at the train station in Debrecen, where we boarded a bus and after a
short time arrived at the meeting point with Tibor HA7TM, who, after winding along the forest roads,
brought us to the HG7T position.
The HG7T antennas http://www.hg7t.hu/antennas.html are amazing.
On 10, 15, 20 and 40m bands, these are stacks with independent rotation control for each of the
antennas
On 80m a rotating 3-element Yagi.
On 160m – two phased wire verticals
There are several networked operating positions in the shack.
The transceivers at all positions are the same ICOM IC7610. We had to use them in the Multi-Two Low
Power category.
Friday evening and Saturday morning were devoted to familiarization with the hardware and software.
We had to use the “DXLog.net – Contest logger” program during the contest It turned out to be a
Windows-based, distant relative of the CT by K1EA program that we used in the early 90s and which,
after switching to TR-Log, was long forgotten.
Fortunately, the DXLog.net program has a so-called ESM or “Enter Sends Message” mode, which
allows you to operate, as in TR-Log and TR4W.
The next task that had to be solved was the rotation of the antennas in the PstRotator program. The
available controller ensured the connection of only two control units, so only 15 and 40 meter antennas were rotated by PstRotator .
The computer on which the PstRotator software was installed was located near this position, which a
allowed the operator to set the azimuth with the mouse.
The remaining antennas were rotated by operators directly from the control units.
The next stage of preparation was “on-air getting used to the transceiver”.
Win-Test program was launched and configured in the General QSO mode at one of the workstations.
137 QSOs were made on different bands, LoTW certificate for HA/K1WE was received, QSOs were
loaded to LoTW.
During the “training”, antennae switching and their rotation were practiced as well.
Some side mount rotators allowed the antennas to rotate only in certain sectors.
Contest operation..
On Saturday at 1200 GMT, the long awaited event began.
Band conditions in KN07VN differs little from our KN18/29, so many years of experience in IARU
HF Championships turned out to be quite applicable in the described competitions.
Most of the time we worked RUN, mostly CW on two bands. For our category, DXCluster is
prohibited, so all hope was that the multipliers would call us themselves. Partially, this calculation was
justified, and as a result, the overall multiplier turned out to be quite worthy.
Despite of low power used (100 watt), but thanks to good antennas, the RUN position had callers
almost constantly, both from North America and Japan, and due to the short skip, Europe was calling
all the time. 15 and 20m were open around the clock.
In order to maintain a high rate and collect multipliers, it was necessary to “jump” from band to band
all the time.. Unfortunately, the propaagtion on 10m was not good and it all came down to the search
for multipliers.
The operation was carried out in shifts, SSB operators replaced CW operators and vice versa.
This made it possible to maintain a high QSO rate
The US5WE RUN shift was the last and ended on 21 MHz with two North American QSOs.
The final score has brought the first place in the world and the new world record in the Multi-Two Low
Power category.- 3422 QSOs (768 – SSB, 2654 – CW)
We express our gratitude to Tibor Nemeth HA7TM for the opportunity to take part in IARU HF 2023.
The hospitality of Tibor and his wife Ruzhika was beyond praise.
Next up: 2024 Contest
This year we’ve been invited to take part in IARU World HF Championship from HG7T again.
The route to Debrecen was well known so we have reached the HG7T site easily. The propagation as last year wasn’t good on 10 meters but 15 was absolutely fantastic. The band was open all the night with NA signals being very strong. So it was easy to work the pile-ups even barefoot. Even 6 over 6 over 6 Yagi stack was a magic weapon. As usual, I was at the 15/40m position mainly on CW but some SSB as well.
Alex’s UT7DX shifts were SSB only.
The claimed score was better then last year’s so we are eagerly waiting to see the final results. As for
now we are still on the first place in the world with a new world record.
DX, Multioperator
Two Transmitter, Low Power
- HG7T 4,094,250
- UW5Y 3,918,510
- ES9C 3,913,337
- EA1X 3,865,316
- 9A1P 3,733,324
- 4X1DX3,507,165
- OM8A 3,179,301
- LX7I 3,151,200
- RM9I 3,011,686
- LY4L 2,994,876