CN3A

03/10/2026

Claimed cqww rtty 2026 are out!!!! Looking for ssb now!

01/10/2026

CN3A
Operator(s): OK1DO OK1FFU OK1RI OK1TRJ OK1VVT OK2ZAW OK5MM
Station: CN3A

Class: M/M HP
QTH: Safi
Operating Time (hrs): 48
Location: Africa

Summary: Compare Scores
Band QSOs State/Prov DX Zones
80: 838 49 66 19
40: 1458 53 53 32
20: 1895 58 106 36
15: 1984 55 112 34
10: 701 26 86 30
Total: 6876 241 461 151 Total Score 17,559,005



Our second WW-RTTY contest in last years. This year there was not big works planed so most people arrived just in Thursday before the contest, one relatively young newcommer to CN3A - OK1TRJ. Surprisingly all the antennas were in good shape. OK2ZAW decided to experimentally build two short (only 45m) phased beverages on the ground towards EU and in real life it was found they were according to my expectation good for nothing. We even managed to put up a skimmer about 200 m away with 7m high vertical and a preamp, it worked surprisingly well as could everybody observe.
Concerning the propagation – it was mentioned by many – up to that we had two quite big magnetic disturbances during both nights – check the Kiruna website. But in real life in our spot in the world it was not so bad – just the problem was no people on the bands. 10m – there was just a few loud callers – Saturday less than in Sunday. We were on the RBN well over 20dB in most of the NA but just a few quite loud callers even some 2x3 callsigns. People decided to ignore 10m if it was closed towards EU – but there are others like us the CR3, EA8 etc. which could be easily worked. Also in the EU a few people coming in. We were over 40dB in some places and….. The low bands were not better than a year before – just more activity there. All the high bands died until midnight and nothing there during night. Even 20m was completely silent.
The newly appearing multipliers were a total disaster on RTTY. The lower the frequency the worse it was. I am 100% sure there was quite a few stations who nicely gave report sent TU but the DX had no idea did not reply…. I could name some. On RTTY it is complicated to distinguish in the pileups….. As always remark for our friend P49X – we called him 5x on all bands – we are still waiting for the moment he calls us once.
This year we have worked 207 stations on 5 bands – last year it was 289. The most notable of those are VK9DX and KH7M. Of course you sort of expect it with people like 9A1A, NJ4P, ZF2SS, CR3DX etc…
It was nice to work a few JAs on 10m before midnight in Sunday in this conditions – in Saturday nothing there.
To sum it up we have about 1000 QSOs less than last year and about 60 multipliers less – mostly on high bands. As always if the people would appear on 10 + 80m MUCH MUCH more could have been worked there - the propagation was there.

One interesting and in a way surprising was that our good friends for very long years the CR3DX guys appeared on livescore in M/M just in the beginning and after few minutes disappeared. It would be nice to have an online competition with them. But looking at the spots they might have been M/2 – still not in a livescore.

Hope to work all of you in SSB and CW contests once more.

Antennas
80m - 2el deltaloop (into both NA and EU on two towers) loops spaced @ about 14m both horizontally fed.
40m - 2x 2x3el.full size Yagi +44m 12m boom always two into EU and NA - fixed - not rotary on two towewrs.
20m - 3x 5el.Yagi into EU @39+27+15m fixed + 3x 5el.Yagi into NA @33+21m+9m fixed on one tower + rotary 4Y@28m (not in use much)
15m - 4x 5el.Yagi into EU + 4x5el.Yagi into NA on 2 towers + 5el.Yagi into 165deg + 4el.Yagi into SA - all fixed + 6Y Yagi rotary.
10m - 6x 4Y Yagi @38/32/26/20/14/8m to the USA to the EU-JA on two towers,5Y Yagi at 35m to 120deg and 6Y YAGI at 35m into SA/JA-lp + 6Y Yagi rotary.

Thanks to Ahmed CN8WK and of course to ARRAM for long years of steady support.

73 !

For the whole CN3A team Jiri - OK1RI

26/09/2026

CQWW RTTY ? Stay with us ! CN3A multi multi rolling !!!

26/08/2026

CN3A
Operator(s): OK1DIX OK1RI OK1VVT

As I promised last year “we will be back” – so here we are. We decided to do the M/S again.
Just after our arrival we have seen that our top 40m 3el.Yagi has bent the by some heavy wind the boom by about 60 deg. – so it was sad and the repair is not going to be easy !
We had 2 short dropouts – so good.
The first day seemed to be OK – we had about 40 QSOs more than last year – I did hoped for more but…. Sunday was very different – the signals on 10m were loud but nobody called so we spent almost whole day on 15m. 20m was slower than 15m and later 20m gave less points than 40m – so very few QSOs there. On the end we finished almost the same as last year – about 150 000 points more. Others said the culprit of overall consideringly smaller scores this year was the propagation, I do not believe so – I think it was the lack of people on the air. The pileups in Sunday were sort of slow – loud stations coming in but few CQs and one caller….. Listening to the others it seemed to be the same. I do believe the propagation was not so bad, but hard to be sure how it really was.

Anyway, we are happy with the result and we had a good time.

Thanks to our host Ahmed CN8WK and of course to ARRAM for long years of steady support.

73 ! and until next time
Jiri OK1RI
For the whole CN3A team

06/08/2026

This year we arrived to Morroco in 10 people - a reasonable crew for M/M effort. 4 people arrived already 10 days before to help our friend Ali CN8TW to come back on the air. Later in Sunday and Monday another 5 people arrived and last one Thursday evening. No newcomers this time.
We had two maintenance goals one a major one to fix our 40m full size 3Y in 44m where 190 km/hour (120mi/hours) wind with rain break the boom – fortunately the truss made it so the broken part was still hanging somewhere in the air. It was a Biiiiiig effort – we considered to call a crane to put it down – fix it fast and up again, but said Eh we are clever we will make it. Well we did but still in Thursday noon before the contest I said we are idiots – we should have ordered the crane – well our “iron” men OK1GI + OK1MV after four days of work on the tower made it and I had the privilege to climb the tower Friday afternoon and reconnect the cables to the stack configuration. The weather was not too friendly it was 46 deg.C in the shade in Monday nicer 37 in Tuesday and “nice” 33 in Friday. Unfortunately there is no shade on the tower, i.e. how much was there ? The other not so complicated goal was to move 160m 2 m higher to move the loop out of 15m EU stack area - in big wind it was touching 15m EU stack and creating havoc. It was done – again easy to say but it was more than 4 man-days work. Also the rope for one of the 80m loops was broken, so the holder had to go down – new rope in and up…. As always more work to be done than planned.
Concerning the propagation, we were optimistic the SFI went up up to 148 in Saturday, dropped in Sunday to 136 – but the propagation was worse than expected for the decent SFI due to the magnetic disturbances – Saturday was not so severe but still around 500nT in Kiruna, Sunday was a disaster the magnetic field was jumping fast up and down many times and disturbing the ionosphere “quite a lot” as observed by everybody. Check the Kiruna magnetometer to get a better idea.
Band to band – 160m was poor – but the propagation was not extremely bad – there were some thunderstorms around – more in Sunday. We worked 15 NA stations, we were able to get all we heard and I do not know if we heard all that gave us a call of course, I do believe if more people would make the trouble to come there they could have been worked. 80m was good – but as always not enough people there. Two remarks – OK1IF (OL4W) was testing us we could not get him with 100mW but it was an easy QSO with 200mW !! – and he has small antenna – a piece of wire in 10m or so !!! Concerning NA – I do believe we worked all the west coast stations which took the trouble to come on the band in the proper time Some called us – we called some… Just as always not enough people there – If you have a “POTA” etc. size antenna come on – I strongly do believe we will hear you and I am almost sure you will hear us. 40m was as always crowded – the propagation was decent. 20m was somehow going all the time – it was slow during the day, better during night. 15m was good going whole night somehow, JA were coming in late evening and during night – not in quantity but surprising still. 10m was well not so bad in Saturday but bad in Sunday. There were interesting QSOs mostly long pass during the first night, for instance a couple of west cost NA, some VK, ZL. In Sunday mostly only ES propagation to EU – very selective – for instance in one moment a couple of HA 59+40dB and not a single DL or G audible. Few minutes later it moved somewhere. We observed several times one EU working the other but we heard only one and NOTHING from the other.
Speaking of the propagation we thought Ehh we will be far away from the nice scores we had in 2023 and 2024 (omitting 2025). To finish only 10% lower to our claimed score from 2024 was a big surprise. Looking at the others on the score board our expectation was to be at least 20% less. We finished 700 QSOs less and 20 multipliers less only.
While we were sitting in a restaurant in Marrakesh in Monday evening somebody asked how many DXCC we worked so here it is:
160m 43
80m 66
40m 94
20m 111
15m 121
10m 109
We had 63 6-banders – mostly EU – only 3x NA WA3EKL, WG4R, WK1Q, 168 5-banders from those 30 NA, 2 SA, 1 AF and only 3 AS.
Continent wise QSOs:
EU 5640
NA 2881
AS 578
SA 285
OC 175
AF 63
And finally top 10 Countries:
W 2576
DL 826
UA-eu 516
I 410
OK 334
G 323
SP 295
UR 279
EA 253
F 227
Others 3583
On SSB it would look very different !

Very good thing – not a single dropout.

We had a good time and had fun together.

Antennas used: bev on 160,80,40 - 2x 360m long into 45 and and 300 deg.
160m - single delta loop@45m - verticaly fed
80m - 2el deltaloop (into NA and EU on two towers) loops spaced @ about 14m - all horizontally fed.
40m - 2x 3el.full size Yagi +44m 12m boom into EU and NA - fixed - not rotary.
20m - 3x 5el.Yagi into EU @39+27+15m fixed + 3x 5el.Yagi into NA @33+21+9m fixed + rotary 4Y@28m
15m - 4x 5el.Yagi into EU + 4x5el.Yagi into NA + 5el.Yagi into 165deg + 4el.Yagi into SA - all fixed + 6Y rotary
10m - 6x 4Y Yagi @38/32/26/20/14/8m to the USA and same second system to the EU, 5Y Yagi at 35m to 120deg and 6Y YAGI at 35m into SA + 6Y rotary.

Thanks to Ahmed CN8WK and of course to ARRAM for the long years of the steady support.

73 !

For the whole CN3A team Jiri - OK1RI

12/07/2026

Twenty years ago, on an ordinary day that would soon become extraordinary, I went to Marocco Atlantic cost try to find the right location to built a brand new Contest Station.

There was no station yet, no antennas, no pile-ups.

There was only an idea burning bright: finding a place where Ham Radio could become something bigger, more alive, more real.

I crossed roads, landscapes, stretches of silence. Until, 15 km north of Asfi , the Atlantic coast of Morocco opened before me like a promise. The wind, the sea, the horizon — everything whispered “here”.

That was where CN3A was born: first in Stefano and in my mind, then in the soil, and finally in the heart.

The years that followed were a weave of work and friendship.

With Stefano IK2QEI, my great “brother” more than a partner in adventure, every day became a step forward: a cable laid, a structure raised, a shared laugh.

The station grew, and with it grew the feeling that we had created something that didn’t belong only to us, but to anyone who carried the passion of sitting in front of a radio and listening to the world.

CN3A became a place of encounters.

Operators from everywhere, each with their own story, each with their own voice.

They arrived, operated, laughed, worked hard, and then left always leaving a mark.

Every person added a piece, a memory, a moment that today forms a large, bright mosaic. To all of them goes a thank you that is not just a gesture: it is an embrace.

In recent years, a new energy has flowed through the station.

Jiri OK1RI arrived with enthusiasm, dedication, and that rare ability to turn passion into continuity.

He brought people, ideas, strength.
He gave CN3A a new rhythm, a new light to continue this journey in the right and professional way.

And then there is Ahmed CN8WK, constant, reliable, a true friend.

And the ARRAM, that gave us the opportunity, in which we proudly represented around the world, bringing Morocco to the top of international contesting arena.

CN3A is not just a station.

is a place where the Atlantic wind becomes a companion, where nights fill with distant voices, where friendship intertwines with passion. It is a story that vibrates, grows, and continues.

Twenty years of Radio Amateur competition, of great operators, of people, of life.

And our story has no intention of stopping.

Best 73’ to all of you !!!

De CN3A Contest Team

P.s. in attach the first July 7, 2006 Hq in Rabat meeting, Great people and great moments.

27/06/2026

It’s always so nice to meet Ham Radio friend in person and this event is able to arrange this.

First of all to see Jiri , Stefano, Alessandro , Petar, Vaclav, Tim, Matthew, Rick, Maurizio, Luca, Paolo and all the OM friends we met during this day. Thank you for your presence and thank you to be always into our Logs. Talk to you soon on the air.

Best 73’ de CN3A

26/06/2026

CN3A HAM RADIO Messe…more pictures tomorrow

09/06/2026

CN8WK IK2SGC OK1DOL OK1FFU OK1MV OK1NP OK1RI OK2ZAW OM6NM

07/06/2026