Station Description
Radio 1 - Yeasu FT-1000D + Alpha 76CA
Radio 2 - Yeasu FT-1000D + Ameritron AL-1200
Tower 1 - 100' Rohn 45G
40-2CD @ 110'
205CA @ 100' / 50'
5-el 15 @70' / 35'
80m Inv Vee with top at 95'
160m 1/4-wave GP with 4 elevated radials
Tower 2 - 90' Rohn 25G
6-el 10 @90' with 4/4 @ 60'/30'
40m 1/2-wave sloper to west
80m wire 4 square hanging from tower with 16 radials per vertical
160m shunt feed tower with 32 radials
Tower 3 - 40' Rohn 25G
TH7DXX at 40'
Comments
This contest suffered from two unusual failures: operator and antennas.
I wanted to do the contest. I prepared for the contest. But, when it
started,
I just didn't seem to have the necessary motivation. Decided to sleep 90
minutes the first night in an effort to reduce the pain of the poor
conditions.
Have never slept during the first night a serious effort before.
Discovered the first antenna problem when I tried to turn the side
mounted 15m
beam to Europe Sat morning. It would get stuck at due North. Decided to
push
on using just the antenna fixed on Europe at 30' and would try to
determine the
problem later in the day.
Nothing fixes motivation like some high rates. Managed a best 60 minutes
of 195
QSOs on Sat morning. Maybe I should just use the low antenna all the
time!
Ran out to the tower later and found one leg of the 80m inverted Vee had
fallen
into the 15m beam. Pulled it back out and was fully rotatable again.
Second antenna problem occurred around 02Z. Turned the 40/20m beam due
south to work CP6CW on 40m. Then couldn't get the Tailtwister to rotate
back again. We
had a full moon and good weather, but didn't want to take a chance
climbing the
tower. Kept trying to play with it but no wind, so it wasn't moving.
This leaves my only 40m antenna fixed south.
Told my wife that this effectively ended the contest for me. Decided to
play
DXer on the low bands and try to make what score I could. 80m was great
Sat
night at Eu sunrise. Gave up the normal 40m opening (maybe 100 QSOs) and
went
to bed.
Sunday morning, got up and decided to do what I could with the fixed 20m
beam to Europe at 50'. Conditions on 20m were great. Band was wide open
across Europe
and into zone 16. Worked lots of UA3 stations with great signals. Again,
maybe
I need to do all my 20m running with the low antenna only!
15m and 10m never did much on Sunday. 20m was always more productive.
Was windy on Sunday and I could play with the rotator where I could see
it
through the shack window. Finally got it off the stop and rotary again.
Kept
me in the contest and was worth a lot of multipliers in the last several
hours.
Definitely a contest for SO2R (and to be in W1). No 10m, yet managed to
work
lots of countries. One advantage of calling CQ on 20m all day is that
lots of
strange and interesting things call in. Thus the big mult. Never heard
zone 23
or 24 on any band.
Learned that sleep makes DX contests more fun. Also that sleep sure
helps your
mental ability to handle high rates. As conditions go down, we are going
to find
the activity is super concentrated into specific openings. May be worth
sleeping more to maximize rate production.
Another lesson is that motivation is often a matter of managing
expectations.
When conditions were bad the first night, it was hard to imagine
continuing all
weekend. Best not to try competing with past rate sheets and just deal
with what
is happening now.
Lots of great operators out there. Just wish they would sign their calls
more
often. Not all of us are using packet.
Continent Statistics
