CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW
Call: N4TZ/9
Operator(s): N4TZ
Station: N4TZ
Class: SOAB LP
QTH: IN
Operating Time (hrs): 42
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 66 13 37
80: 229 19 74
40: 306 22 94
20: 408 33 97
15: 360 29 101
10: 61 16 33
------------------------------
Total: 1430 132 436 Total Score = 2,296,992
Club:
Comments:
I guess Murphy's appearance at my station for the CQWW SSB
weekend was just an audition for the real contest, the
CQWW CW.
We had some big winds Sunday. On Monday I notice that my
top 10/15 reflector is bent like a pretzel. The winds had moved
the concrete blocks holding the ropes to my 160m verticals enough
to catch the end of the element. I moved the ropes back and turned
the antenna back home, but element is "slightly" bent back. So,
I think things are FB. Go inside and turn the beam a little. Seems
good. Turn it more. Catch the bent element on the top steel
guy wire. The guy wire doesn't budge. So now the bend is
more noticable. I can only turn the top 10/15 (at 99') between
90 and 180 degrees without catching it on the guy wires. My
middle 10/15 is fixed on Europe (no rotor, yet)
The bottom on at 45' does turns 360 degrees so
will have to use that for JA and Pacific on 10 & 15m.
Years of experience have shown that the identical antenna
at 99' is 6dB better than the one at 45'.
Wednesday and Thursday we had some heavy rains (the first serious
ones since July) and some wind. The wind ripped a soffit
concealing the air conditioning freon lines off the side
of the house, pulling out several screw anchors holding it to
the brick wall. So, I didn't check the antennas Thursday while
I repaired the soffit. Friday, it got cold.
I've been turning the prop pitch rotor every day since the
CQWW SSB with no problems, until Thursday night when it turned very slowly.
Friday morning it doesn't turn at all. I Took my 12v power supply
and a 12v battery out to the tower base. Before, just 12v at the tower
would turn the rotor nicely. Now,he two 12v sources in series did't budge it.
W9RE mentioned that it was probaly ice from the storm and to wait
for the thaw. At 1pm it was still frozen, and pointed in the
wrong direction. Tried to take a pre-contest nap. At 4pm
tried again with the battery and power supply and after a number
of tries managed to get it pointed to Europe. Mike said
to try to turn it every few minutes to keep it going.
I did, but it froze again by 6pm. Fortunately, it froze to
Europe, but didn't thaw again until Saturday noon. Slightly
better on Sunday, thawed by 9am. So, missed the JA and most
Pacific multipliers on 40m.
I had run both rigs pretty solid all week long with no problems.
However, during the contest with both rigs on at the same time
and with the logging computer running, I had numerous crashes.
The problems seem to happen while changing frequency with
either a knob or even logging computer control. The computer
runs DOS 6.22 and TRLog classis - but is "new to me" so
maybe there is some problem there. TR crashed early in each
of the CQWW contests this year, the same version that I've
used for several years without problem. Even the PC would
lock up a couple of times. It's hard to believe there is
RF in the shack with 100watts and the antennas located
hundreds of feet away.
I kept at it better this weekend than the SSB one, and just
kept rebooting and writing down problems to check later.
I've got a couple of months to check things out and should
have lots of cold weather to check on the rotor!
Not much luck running here, only 152 QSOs resulting from
hours of trying to run on all six bands; some slight
success on 20 and 15, no luck on the other bands.
Never worked my zone on 10m; barely worked zone 5.
I'm glad my WRTC teammate, N5AW, had such a great contest.
I was hoping to give him some better competition.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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