As a Dutch contest group, we think it is important to make ourselves heard during the national competition. The duration of (only) 24 hours also makes it a competition with a low threshold for our members. We still find it difficult that the PACC coincides with another favorite race of many of our members; the CQ WPX RTTY contest. Every year there is a short discussion about which contest it will be and then the PACC always wins. If someone manages to separate the dates so that we can participate in both, I am sure he will make us and many Dutch contesters happy…
It was decided to participate as Multi2, despite the even smaller team than in 2025.
A challenge awaited the team consisting of Dervin PD9DX, Ronald PA3EWP and Alex PA1AW as the full-time crew, with Ton PA1CC joining in for the night shift only.
The build-up on Saturday morning brought the usual challenges.
A few weeks before the contest it turned out that somewhere underground the coax to the 15m beam was damaged and there was no other option than to run a coax out to the mast and connect halfway the mast to the cable that goes up to the antenna. Sounds easy, but those who are familiar with our remote location understand that this is not the case. Add to that the very strong wind that blew on us over the river and you will understand that working in the mast was no fun, removing on Sunday was even worse when the temperature dropped further. This whole job also resulted in a late start of the contest. If you are running out of coax outside, you simply cannot make qso’s behind the radio at the same time. So there was already a backlog on the competition before we could even start. Unfortunately, it was not the only problem. The rotator controllers for both the 20m beam and the OB5-11 multibander gave no indication, so go outside and see where the beam is pointing…. Inconvenient during the day, a real challenge as soon as it gets dark. And believe me, it gets dark early in February.
The construction of the two radiostations is a slightly different story. Those familiar with our station know that each shack is built in a separate “container”. A number of patch cables are buried between the shacks for coax, rotator and network. It’s a really good idea to use the right patch cord for the right application. It’s easy to make a mistake and no one waits for a signal to be sent directly to the receiver in the other cabin. Due to the absence of part of the normal team a part of the normally used equipment was also missing. This means that setting up a working N1MM computer network, ensuring that the right antenna is available in the right shack (preferably including rotor controller) and so on, was a challenge. Anything but plug & play this time. But in the end, shortly before our late start of the contest, everything seemed to work, and that without any significant stress.
Late at night the amplifier in shack two had a malfunction and had a significant drop of power and strange tuning behaviour. Trouble shooting meant another period without radio activity. Soon it was found that one of the main fuses was gone. This fuse was not at hand at the location so Ton PA1CC was asked to check his stock resulting in him coming in delayed for his night shift. As apart from the lower power it looked like there was no othe problem we continued with low power on station #2. When Ton came in the fuse was replaced with a lower rated fuse and the contest was completed with reduced power on this station. The troubleshooting cost us approx. one hour of valuable time on both stations….
The station:
Shack 1:
Band: 10 20 80
Radio: Elecraft K4
Antennas: Optibeam OB5-11 @ 12m for 10m, 5 el Optibeam @ 26m for 20m, Dipole for 80m @ 22 m. NO RX antennas this year.
Shack 2:
Band: 15 40 160
Radio: Icom IC7610
Antennas: 6 el Optibeam @26m for 15m, 2 el. Optibeam @ 27m for 40m, Dipole for 160m
The contest:
So we didn’t have time for the strategy meeting, so this happened while 2/3 of the team had already started making the contacts. Now the PACC no longer really holds any secrets for us, after all, we have been successfully participating since our foundation 36 years ago. But propagation and the right timing remain a actual topic as nature is never the same.
Our basis is simple: in both shacks you start on the highest belt that really delivers. We started with Dervin PD9DX as a pure SSB operator in SSB and Alex PA1AW in the other shack as much as possible in CW. As soon as the runs decrease immediately switch to the other mode to work the same stations again as well as the multipliers. In a 24-hour contest like the PACC you only get the right opening to a certain part of the world once and so you have to tackle it. In our case, changing modes meant changing shacks. So regularly it was collecting your stuff such as a headset and a short walk to the other shack, press OPON, enter your call and look for a run frequency on the band where the other mode just had been running.
From the start, the crowd was good. We were happy that we could resist the temptation to start at 20 and 40 and put the focus on the higher bands so that we could reel in those one-off multipliers. A good choice and with the bonus of incredible runs, especially at 10 meters, we were doubly happy. Switching shacks quickly became a habit and with a simple OPON all your settings back on the screen remains a perfect option in N1MM.
Changing stations to have a good mode balance and to take full advantage of the (one-off) openings worked great. We were surprised a few times after a band change by the HUGE pile-ups in the first 10-15 minutes, the PACC clearly is a popular contest. Usually it did drop a bit but only to QSO rates with multiple QSOs per minute for a longer period of time, and that for a PACC contest. All the fun comes to an end and so do the big runs, but by then it was already deep into the night. Although the plan was to do the “dog watch” just like in 2025 with one operator switching 40-80 and 160m, each time fifteen minutes or even shorter to run maximum speeds in both modes and then on to the next band, it turned out that we could keep up a nice run on 40m SSB well into the night. Our signal worked to both North and South Amaerica and Alex managed to serve many numbers “001” at 40m this night. This was at the expense of his sleeping hours, but it turned out to be the moment where we could turn the contest in our favor. “Keep going” is an ancient contest wisdom in it proved to be the key to success. If you hear afterwards that other stations have stopped for a few hours due to lack of audience it is clear we made the right choice again.
The last hours of the competition went as usual; enjoying 40 and 20 meters with a strong pace in both modes. This year we were also able to pull a final sprint at 10 and 15 meters, something that really didn’t work in other years. We have done a relatively large amount of forwarding counterstations to the frequency of our other station this year, it resulted in nice multipliers that we would otherwise have missed.Every year we are amazed at how such a relatively small competition can have such an impact on the bands….
Our claimed score:
We are very proud of this achievement. Although we couldn’t beat our score of 2024, the best PI4COM score ever in Multi2, by a long shot, it seems that it is enough to finish as the winner in our category again. The claimed scores on the VERON website give us hope:
Of course we would like to thank everyone for the QSOs and making this wonderful experience possible. Of course, we are always available for questions. Are you a contester and are you interested in a station like PI4COM; We also have a place for new members. Of course, there are rights and obligations associated with them, but we are happy to share them with you.
Hope to see you in the PACC2027 or earlier in another contest.
Team PI4COM PACC 2026 (LtoR); Ronald PA3EWP, Dervin PD9DX, Ton PA1CC and Alex PA1AW.
