Peter OH5NQ will turn 80 years of age later in the year and has 65 years anniversary in ham radio this year. Hence OH5Z group decided to arrange something memorable for him. Decicion was taken to arrange a big crew of Peter's friends to run CQWW SSB, his favorite contest, in Multi/Multi category. Invitations were sent out and quite quickly we had the operator list mentioned above. Both US operators are friends with Peter since 30-40 years ago and they didn't think twice when they got the invite. Finnish operators are OH5Z regulars added with some top Finnish operators and Peter's friends.

During the summer and autumn new receive antennas, new inband tower and hundreds of meters of new coaxials were put up. On Thursday morning before the contest rented container which would act as a 80 and 160m ham shack arrived and few hours later OH5TS brought rented generator with him. We needed to rent both the shack and generator since OH5Z is not designed for M/M, it's designed to house either M/S or M/2 crews. Also AC mains is not strong enough for six high power station transmitting at the same time. During Friday yet another 15m high tower was put for a 10m 5-el beam which could be turned independently to other antennas since often during low sun spots 10m QSO's come from odd scatter directions. The whole week before the contest we were watching sun indexes and started to feel the worst. K-index was hovering in 6's and 7's and in Finland it means that it's better to shut down radios and go out to look for visible aurora borealis. As everyone knows conditions were as bad as expected when two massive coronal holes face the earth.

At the 00Z station was almost ready, yet again contest started 2 hours too early but all the stations which had band open were at least making QSO's. 10m and 15m stations were ready and alive just before the bands started to open. 160m station operated by OH1RX and OH2BO were really working hard for every QSO and multiplier. New beverages for RX really paid off since on transmit vertical was S9+ noise throughout the contest. 80m station operated by OH9X, OH5LF and OH6XX was really struggling ini the beginning. Even S9+30 Germans were CQ'ing at our face. We just couldn't break the aurora belt and we felt that transmit antenna was broken. It still can be broken but working couple zone 3 stations on Saturday afternoon greyline tells another story. Same noise that was on 160m was affecting 80m also and basically whole weekend was listened with beverages. A bit dissapoiinting result but that was the best could do this time. 40m team was a mix of youth and experience. OH5CZ (age of 15) and OH6MW (CQWW winner at PJ9A/PJ9W era) helped by other bands pulled 40m through nicely. There weren't big NA or JA runs but that is SSB contesting on 40m from OH. 20m was birthday hero himself OH5NQ, OH5KS, OH7CW and K1RX. They did good job in multipliers and conditions didn't allow them to do more QSO's. Same as on 40m big JA and NA runs were absent although on Sunday night finally Mark K1RX got to enjoy a bit of a NA run and work his buddies from other side of the bond. 15m was mainly operated by OH5TS and K9MA again helped by other bands. 15m was some what open but nothing spectacular. Still DXCC in one contest with low sun spots is really nice. 10m had only one dedicated operator OH6HZH but his pain was helped by others. The new 5el beam was really an asset as we could point that the odd directions were we anticipated the signals would come from. 42 countries is nothing special but quite ok anyway.We used K3's, TS-590's, FT5000 and a FT2000 rigs all together eight in total with different variety of amplifiers. 20m and 40m stations had two operating positions with RUN and SUPPORT possibility and other four bands were single radio positions.

After putting up M/M and getting everything pretty much working it was really rewarding seeing Peter enjoy his "birthday present", have chats with his friends and see all the other operators with happy faces. Even the worst band conditions in everyones memories couldn't kill the fun. We will post pictures to OH5Z facebook page shortly. Thank you everyone for QSO's and birthday wishes to Peter. Each and every were passed to him either over Win-Test chat or verbally. OH5Z will return in CQWW CW in either M/S or M/2 category.

73, Juha OH6XX on behalf of OH5NQ/OH5Z crew.