CQ WW SSB 2008 Europe: OH2UA Unveils CU2A Upgrade, Bids For Third Straight EU Single Op Title

By Jamie Dupree NS3T  radio-sport.net 
Posted October 17, 2008

After grabbing the top single operator score from Europe for a second straight year in 2007, Toni Linden OH2UA will try for three CQ WW SSB titles in a row from a much improved CU2A contest station in the Azores.

"We've been working on the new CU2A site for a couple of years," Linden told radio-sport.net. "The site is a flat field up on a hilltop, with nothing else than our shack and towers."

Before the CU2A move, the station had one 100 foot high tower with two high band yagis, a 40m yagi side mounted and wires for 80 and 160 meters.

"At the (new) site we have three towers, two fixed 80 ft towers and one rotatable 120 foot high tower," said Linden.

"On the fixed towers we have two stacked 10 element tribanders both for EU and NA. Also on the EU tower we have a fixed 2-element 40m yagi beaming to EU. On the rotatable tower we have 2-element yagis for 80m and 40m one 10 element tribander," said Linden.

Last year Linden ended up in fourth place overall with 7.5 million points. This time, he hopes to greatly improve on that.

Chasing Linden this year will be a group of tough competitors from all corners of Europe, as M6T (G4PIQ), 4O3A, ES5TV, S50A and SV9CVY (DL6FBL) all have the ability to take the top spot.

"There's probably no realistic way to catch CU2A at this point in the cycle," says Andy Cook G4PIQ, who finished second in Europe last year and 9th overall in the World. -

'He has much longer and better propagation to North America than I have from here and that counts for a lot."

"I am expecting this year a similar scenario," says Ranko Boca 4O3A, who finished third in Europe last year.

"But as in any sport, some surprise can happen...who knows...Let's see."

Like OH2UA, Boca has been working on his station this year on station automation and the ability to split power for antennas in different directions. The main work he says will be new antennas like at CU2A.

"I must upgrade my antennas on the highest level possible. New 33m rotary tower is installed, and hopefully will carry new stacks: 7/7 for 10M, 6/6 for 15M, 5/5 on 20M," Boca told radio-sport.net.

The one wild card right now may be Bernd Och DL6FBL, who had an unexpectedly strong finish in Europe in last year's CQ WW CW from SV9CVY in Greece.

"Now that CU2A has even bigger antennas, and I have also seen and tested the 4O3A setup last weekend for a few hours - my feelings are that I can become a #3 EU at best!" said Och.

"The SV9 location gives you advantage over most other EU stations more in the north, because you have the advantage of a potentially higher MUF in the south meaning a better chance for openings on 21 and 28 MHz," Och said.

"SV9 is about 2000-3000 km away from Central Europe, which lets you work into the important activity region DL / SP / G on all bands quite easily - but every QSO is just worth one point."

Och acknowledged his disadvantage is North America, "because the signal path must cross the whole European "wall", which will lead to fewer USA, and more EU QSOs, which will build a high QSO total, but only a low QSO point total."

Hoping for a propagation break is Tonno Vahk ES5TV, who won the European SSB title two years ago.

"I will definitely try to do my best again this year intending to take the top spot in my WRTC region if I can," Vahk said.

"It is not realistic to catch Toni OH2UA unless something goes wrong there which I hope would not happen. Especially considering the amount of effort OH guys have put this year into the developments of the CU2A station."