CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB
Call: AI4MK
Operator(s): AI4MK
Station: WJ9B
Class: SOAB LP
QTH: NFL
Operating Time (hrs): 32.5
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 5 3 5
80: 10 6 5
40: 62 10 33
20: 235 21 68
15: 227 19 69
10: 23 5 7
------------------------------
Total: 562 64 187 Total Score = 370,225
Club: Florida Contest Group
Comments:
Rig 1-Yaesu FT1000MP
Rig 2-Kenwood TS570S
10m-Hygain 10-5CA @ 67'
15m-M2 15M6 @ 112'
20m-M2 20M4 @ 90'
40m-Cushcraft 40-2CD @ 57'
75m-One element from Will's 4-square (cut for CW, used autotuner for SSB)
160m-Inverted Vee fed w/ladder line @ 88'
All yagis on a single rotatable 115' tower.
My thanks to Will WJ9B for his kind hospitality. He took a last-minute request
from me for a station graciously and allowed me to invade his house for the
weekend. He even put me up in his spare bedroom...now who can ask for more
hospitality than that!
Long summary follows...I always find these fascinating reading.
Will has a FB station that really plays well, particularly on 15m. The fact that
his antennas are all cut for the low portions of the CW band meant a few
compromises, but they really only came out on the low bands, where Will has a
four square on 80m that's unusable on 75m without a significant re-engineering.
The only equipment failure directly attributable to operating outside the
antennas' designed bandwidth were two capacitors in Will's Dunestar bandpass
filter for the MP. We discovered that 20m was deaf on the MP before the contest
started, and I just ran without it. No problem barefoot.
The big story for me in the contest, and the reason I felt my score wasn't as
good as it could have been, was my difficulty in getting a run going on any
band. Every time I tried, I'd work a few EU, then start working all stateside. I
made a rule that after I worked six people consecutively who were plainly not in
the contest, at least not seriously, I'd start to S&P again, where at least I
was making some points for myself. The problem was more pronounced on 20m, where
I seemed to be the focal point for people who easily confused my call (I wonder
how many times I4MK will show up in logs this year), and people who
needed/wanted the zone 5 mult from inside the US. The first issue I'll take care
of when the FCC starts processing vanity applications again, the second was
probably my imagination as much as anything.
I did finally get a run going on Saturday afternoon on 15m, and really could
experiment with SO2R as it was intended to work then. I heard the 10m opening to
SA on the second radio, and managed to work a few in between working the main
radio. Unfortunately, since all the yagis are on the same tower, that meant
turning the tower as far north as I could to continue working Europe on the MP,
and calling SA off the back of the 10m beam with the 570. It actually worked
fairly well.
I was a little disappointed in the low bands, but after slogging it out on the
high bands all day, then moving to 40m split when 20m took a nosedive (much more
pronounced on Friday night, I think), I didn't have much enthusiasm left for 80m
and 160m. Interesting mults heard/not worked on 80m (perhaps with high power
<sigh>): JA, VK6, KH7, AH0, ZD8Z.
Overall, I'm very pleased with my first single-op effort in this contest, and
looking forward to SS SSB.
73,
Chris
AI4MK
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
______________________________________________
3830 mailing list
3830@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/3830
|