CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB
Call: VA3SK
Operator(s): VA3SK, VA3GGF, VA3MW, VA3PC, VE3HG, VE3YZR, VE3TPZ, VE3ESH, VE3RZ
Station: VA3SK
Class: M/S HP
QTH: ON
Operating Time (hrs): 40
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 273 9 12
80: 477 15 36
40: 233 20 62
20: 822 27 104
15: 257 23 77
10: 20 7 18
------------------------------
Total: 2082 101 309 Total Score = 2,030,320
Club: Contest Club Ontario
Comments:
After a number of years of relative calm, Murphy hit us hard this year.
Friday, VA3GGF, VA3MW, VA3SK and VE3RZ arrived early and started to put up two
80m half squares and an 80m inverted vee. The weather was cold but quite
enjoyable to be outside. The antennas went up and then a 204BA was mounted at
the 85 foot level on the main 110ft tower. The 3 element 40m beam did not
survive the winter and could not be repaired before the contest so we set up a
two element vertical phased array (half wave spacing with switched half wave
phasing line).
The elevated radials for the 160m inverted vee (90 feet high and the rest
horizontal) were unwound and strung out. By this time, VE3TPZ and VA3PC had
joined the group. Shortly after, VE3HG and VE3ESH arrived.
Both VA3MW and VA3SK got their exercise in tower climbing with VA3MW winning by
climbing all four towers in the afternoon for one reason or another..
The two stations were assembled, the run station consisting of a 756 PRO III
and an LK500 Amp, the Mult station consisting of a 756 PRO III and an ACOM 1000
amp. Then the first of Murphy's visits - the 756 PROs would not communicate
with the PCs running Writelog. After short time and an upgrade to 10.61,
things were finally setup on the mult station 5 mins before start of contest.
Problems with the run station carried over until 30 mins after the start of the
contest.
The second surprise from Murphy was the failure of the wireless internet link.
A barbeque antenna at about 70feet had worked well the previous month, but
refused to operate for the contest. The backup plan for the CLX cluster failed
when the radio link could not be established - oh well, back to the "good ol'
days" and manually searching for the mults....
The 40m verticals seemed to play well, but the N/S 80m half square was not
working. At this stage nothing could be done about that till morning. Qs were
made, but at a slightly lower rate than in '05. The mults were much lower.
During the night, the snow started.... The 160m vertical was no longer working.
By flashlight, repairs were made to re-connect the vertical wire to the vaccumm
variable capacitor.... By morning about 6 inches on the ground. The NE/SW 80m
half square was only up about 30 feet at one end due to the snow accumalation
on a long support rope weighing it down. Repairs were made to the N/S half
square, VA3SK being the tower climber at one end. VA3MW fixed the 80m inverted
vee which had been attached at the 100ft level to the wrong coax!! His climb
down was very scary with the tower icing due to the falling temp.
Qs continued throughout the day with 15m and 10m surprising most people.
Night-time brought the 40/80/160m runs but not at rates that were expected.
Mults remained very low... The snow continued unabated, by Sunday morning,
close to 12 inches was on the ground. Then Murphy really came alive as the
wind freshened and then blew... This brought about a power failure at 7:00am
local time. This lasted for an hour.
Later in the morning 15m had great propagation to Africa and things were going
well till Murphy finally nailed us with a power failure at 13:00 local time.
After about an hour, with the wind howling and the snow still coming down, it
was decided to call it quits for this year... A good decision as the power
only finally came back at 21:00 local time on Sunday evening.
As the winds continued their 100km/hr blow, the final half of the 40m reflector
broke at the boom and was left swinging on the kevlar truss. No doubt this will
be on the ground shortly!
Still great fun was had by all - VA3PC takes the prize for superb chilli for
Saturday evening, the satellite TV worked well so we could see the Maple Leafs
win the shoot out against Montreal....
There is always next year...
To see some photo evidence of this weekend of fun,
http://portcredit.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=4
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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