CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB
Call: SG6T
Operator(s): SM6WET
Station: SG6T
Class: SOAB LP
QTH: JO68
Operating Time (hrs):
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 157 6 38
80: 100 10 42
40: 268 14 71
20: 0 0 0
15: 210 22 70
10: 100 17 38
------------------------------
Total: 835 69 259 Total Score = 401,472
Club: Falkoping Radioclub
Comments:
Rig: Yaesu FT-920 (without SSB filter).
Power: 100W
Software: Writelog on a Asus G75VW
Computer control Microham Microkeyer
Antennas:
160m: WET-vertical (¼-wave)
80m: WET-vertical (¼-wave)
40m: WET-vertical (¼-wave)
20m: NO ANTENNA
15m: Worked on the 40m vertical
10m: A old ECO-Antenna multiband vertical that only seem to work on 10-12m 2
meters up.
What can I say..... Murphy, Murphy and a bit more Murphy.
Although I have a nice station at home I am a living in a city neighborhood
with nearby neighbors. Running QRO is out of the question as one neighbor gets
both TV and phone TVI, the next one drops the Internet and the third one....
Well lets just say I trigger their alarm on 15m. Although I have the law and
the right on my side it is better to keep the neighbors friendly.
I have a little cottage about 30Km away and this is were I usually run
contests. Its quite good with lots of space and quiet bands as there are no
plasma TVs or ventilation controls nearby although it is a hassle to bring the
gear back and forth as well as I have to be portable on my radials as I use
part of my neighbors lot for them.
I have no tower at the cottage so I have to rely on wires and verticals, for
the low bands I have invented a low-cost, easy to deploy vertical with portable
radials that some of my friends call the WET-vertical. Results are quite ok in
consideration and comparison to antennas offered on the market. I only use them
mostly in CQWW and CQ-160 and with just a few years of contesting I reached more
then 100 DXCC countries on topband and 180 DXCC countries on 80m.
For the 10/15/20 I have bought a used Lannabo Vertidip which for you who dont
know is a vertical fullsize dipole for 20m which is center fed some 5-6m up. On
this tubular dipole are insulators holding similar vertical dipoles for
remaining 10/12/15/17. Since I am right on the lake with a good take-off to NA
and SA it is a great vertical. Problem was I had a bunch failures with my
radials, wich the 80m radiator had soaked up water and was more or less
impossible to solder to the feedpoint and some other mishaps made me loose too
much time so the Lannabo never made it up. (pics here:
http://www.lannabo.se/vertical-dipole.html)
Well, I wanted to get some new countries on 80/160m so low-band it was.
So, preparing antenna radials and other setting up I went to bed at 23:20 local
to get up at 1:30 local to wake up before the constest, fired everything up only
to discover that my Ten-Tec Titan were blowing my fuses when I tuned it. After
the 4th fuse burned the amp never lit up anymore, I think it is the softstart
that has broken. So, what to do? Cheer up and run low-power as best I could.
What really sucky conditions. I only worked some of the bigger NA stations on
80m and not a W or VE station at all on 160m. Conditions sucked and it�'s not
easy to get some space on 40m to call CQ. As some people mentioned here before,
there are way to many stations that thing they sound better with mic-gain fully
clockwise, a few stations were splattering S9 more then 3k from their center
frequency in single directions.
On Saturday morning I discovered that high bands were the way to go. But no
antennas.....? I used the ¼wave 40m vertical which played just fine on 15m and
being out in the country with no parts to make a quick antenna I did find a old
retired multiband vertical I had thrown behind the wood stack full of leaves
and other dirt I managed to find a 2m high tube to put it on and the whole went
into a shade umbrella stone support on the ground. Testing it (should work 10
through 40m) I got it to play on 10, 12 and 17m only. SWR on 20m was unlimited
to say the least
Worked exactly 100 QSOs on 80m when I discovered on Saturday morning that the
radiating part of the vertical had disconnected from the feedpoint... Did I
mention that it was corroded and hard to solder. Well, I did not waste more
time on it - 10 zones and 42 countries on 80m is more then many Swedish
stations work on low-power category anyway. Must be remember to make a new
antenna for CQWW-CW.
To sum things up.... Considering no antenna for 20 meters, a shitty low antenna
on 10 meters, no real antenna on 15m but using 3/4-wave from a 40m antenna, 80m
antenna broke after first night and no low-band conditions I think I can
consider the results quite good anyhow.
73 de Magnus SG6T (SM6WET)
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