A friend and I used to take part in VHF contests and it was him who coined the term professional-amateur to describe the big European stations, which he wasn’t that keen on. I took a different view, it’s nice for the smaller stations to get DX and some points, and I can appreciate the effort, achievement and pride people get from building these stations. After dropping out of VHF contesting through lack of support, I wish my club would have put in a little more effort.
73
I’m not sure how the 400W helped him hear your signal. Obviously the Yagi helped.
Indeed. Those antennas might have helped a little.
Many hate contests but they are a brilliant way to work some DX whether HF or VHF. While the contesters have put in the money and effort to build their stations they really want to work you as it all counts.
Surely helped me to hear his signal. 
I was going through the logs from my recent trip to FN, to find the best DX with my 10W and HG antenna (it was Mario @DJ2MX at 368 km).
But then I noticed something strange … I had two QSO’s with Herbert @OE9HRV:
09:10 OE9HRV 144MHz SSB 8675 s55 r55
12:37 OE9HRV 144MHz SSB 8679 s59 r55
Now that would be some DX !
But clearly it’s an error, only I can’t find where the error is.
Is it my error ? Herberts’ error? Database error ? Ham2k Polo error ?
Any specialist can shed a light on this ?
73,
Luc ON7DQ
Hi Luc,
as far as i know, the distances are calculated on the basis of locators or lat/long entries in logs or databases. Often I see in a map that the position of a station is completely wrong, because of a simple exchange of lat/long while entering the data. That would be my first check.
73, Peter
If you click on the map button for the activation you will see that @OE9HRV is off the Pacific coast of Washington State! As Peter says he has probably got lat and long back to front.
Unfortunately, not all databases work the same. Some require E/W and N/S while others prefer just digits with + and - in front of them. Plenty of opportunities for accidents.
The distance calculation is based on the data supplied by the activator.
The other station’s SOTA ref, Gridsquare, Lat/Lon, POTA ref, WWFF ref, in that order.
Edit: The order is SOTA ref, Lat/Lon, Gridsquare, POTA ref, WWFF ref
The error will be in the data that you have uploaded in your log or in your manual log entry. If you would like to share your log, then I may be able to assist further.