CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB
Call: P40W
Operator(s): W2GD
Station: P40W
Class: SOAB(A) HP
QTH: Santa Cruz, Aruba
Operating Time (hrs): 37.5
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 103 12 35
80: 275 15 68
40: 402 27 78
20: 1324 36 123
15: 1783 30 110
10: 1518 29 109
------------------------------
Total: 5405 150 513 Total Score = 10,527,777
Club: Frankford Radio Club
Comments:
IC756ProII, TenTec Titan 425, Kenwood TL922
160M Vertical Dipole (55'), Inverted V @ 70'
80M 3 ele Wire Beam @ 60' toward EU, Inverted V @ 70'
40M 4 ele Wire Beam @ 60' toward EU, 2 ele Wire Beam @ 60' to US/JA, F12 C4
20M 4 ele F12 yagi @ 72', F12 C4 @ 60'
15M 5 ele F12 yagi @ 80', F12 C4 @ 60'
10M 5 ele F12 yagi @ 74', F12 C4 @ 60'
750' beverage toward EU
450' beverage toward US/JA
WOW, what a weekend. Conditions were unreal for this point in the sunspot
cycle. Working 9M2/G4ZFE on 15M at 2:30 a.m. local time Saturday morning LP was
really neat.
But "Murphy" seemed to be a somewhat constant visitor this weekend...I suppose
it was just my turn...rig failures have fortunately been fairly rare for me in
the past few years. Upon arrival I was very pleasantly surprised to find the
FORCE 12 yagi antennas were all functional...after hurricane IVAN came close a
few weeks earlier. But one rotor was damaged...a broken brake. Installing a
spare rotor the next morning fixed the problem.
Spent 2 days erecting wire antennas in between rain storms...far more rain than
normal all week. And all the recent rain has made the cactus grow
profusely....finding my way around these obstacles was most time consuming and
at times 'hurtful'. The new 160M vertical dipole (55' of it is vertical) I
first tried in ARRL CW last year really plays well...had great fun working EU
before the contest on CW...signals were very loud during the week....until the
contest....of course. And the QRN level due to local T-storms increased
progressively each night peaking over the weekend. 80/160 were far better the
first night of the contest than the second due to the noise.
Discovered just 30 minutes before the contest while talking to K4BAI on 15M that
I was having T/R relay problems. His signal would vary from 40 over to S7. I
thought it was the vacuum relay in the Titan 425 at first but later discovered
on Sunday it was actually the T/R relay in my IC756ProII that was
intermittent/fused. As a consequence, I had to manually unkey the amplifier
using the Stby/Operate switch on the front panel of the Titan, or listen on the
beverage antennas. Performing about 4000 manual operations of the switch on
each QSO over was no fun folks! No, I didn't have a foot switch available.
To make things even worse, suffered two power outages over the weekend. The
first lasted over an hour - we lost one line phase entering the house Saturday
evening about 9 p.m. local. My host had to scramble to find a replacement
fuse...none on hand...fortunately his brother-in-law half way across the island
had one. Prime time on 80/160 was lost.
The second 'event' was far more dramatic and occurred at 6 a.m. local time
Sunday morning. Had just gone to sleep at 5 a.m. only to be awakened an hour
later by water dripping on my face. When I came to my senses I observed water
cascading down from the shack ceiling onto my bed and my operating chair among
other places.....its pouring rain outside (the shack is located in a small room
under the back porch of the house). Then within 30 seconds we had a very close
lightening hit....and the power went out. My host spent the next hour working
hard to keep the shack from being totally flooded....pushing water off the porch
floor above me. Over 3 inches of rain fell in an hour. With nothing I could
do, I went back to sleep. Lost 4+ hours...apparently the best time all weekend
to run EU on 10M. To add insult to injury, when I pushed the Titan ON button,
the power supply literally 'smoked'. Opened up the power supply and found a
charred disk capacitor and relay. End of Titan for the weekend. I want to
thank my neighobr P43A for loaning me his spare TL922 Sunday morning. Even
though it didn't have 10M, it was a big help chasing mults on 15-80M the last
few hours.
Used the DXSpider packet cluster on Aruba for the first time this trip in
support of my SOA entry. Unfortunately I didn't think ahead to install spot
filters. The system constantly bogged down, getting up to 2 hours behind due to
sheer callout volume from the internet. Live and learn. Thanks to P43L for
his assistance getting things connected earlier in the week.
The trip was not without some fun. Had enjoyable dinners with P49Y/AE6Y, P43A
and XYL, and after the contest P43P + XYL, P43E, and P49Y. Also dropped by
P43A's place on Thursday afternoon for an eyeball.
See everyone again in 18 days for CQWW CW from P40W.
73,
John P40W/W2GD
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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