ARRL 160-Meter Contest
Call: W3HKK
Operator(s): W3HKK
Station: W3HKK
Class: SO Unlimited HP
QTH: CENTRAL OHIO
Operating Time (hrs): 15.3
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 731 Sections = 99 Countries = 26 Total Score = 155,034
Club: Mad River Radio Club
Comments:
Total Hours: 15.3
Total Q's: 731
Sections: 99
DX: 37 Q's in 26 Countries
VE's: 53
Headaches: 8
SO-HP - Ants: Qtr wave Inv-L ( 52 ft vertical, the rest sloping East down to 20
ft at the end; 38x100 ft radials; SAL-30 RX antenna that made a big
difference.
This was a contest of possibilities- what might have beens. Big sigs from
Europe popped thru the high QRN regularly. Lots of sigs in noise that averaged
between S9 and +15/9. But rare December T-storms arrived during the contest,
on the heels of S-zero noise for the prior two weeks, to quash those hopes.
Got a late start Fri when the basement sump pump stopped operating. Refilled
the back up battery ( low level light was on) and banged on the main pump
float switch enough to get it working again. Reset the alarms. Reached the
shack at 5:30 to find the band well-populated with good signals but the noise
level had risen from S-0 to S-5. CQing around 1852 was drawing a slow but
steady stream of Euros by 6pm, but the noise was rising ever higher. Still,
things were great until the noise swallowed up the sigs and gave me a headache,
so I pulled the plug at 8pm. I checked in at 2 hr intervals all night long
and dealt with the high QRN as best I could, basically working the strong ones.
Had a nice pre-sunrise run from 7-8am then hit the sack at 8am Sat.
By Sat evening the noise was worse than on Fri, so I slept instead of
operating. Couldnt resist so at 11pm got back in and went for 3 hrs, with QSOs
bouncing from W6, W7, to Europe, to OR, MT, NV, back to Europe, and all around
the country. Napped from 3am til 6am, and resumed. Worked KH6, the entire West
Coast, plus a handful of XE, Caribb, and short skip sigs, but the rate was
down from a peak of 53/hr Sat to only 28/hr Sun at sunrise. QRN was lower but
still limiting on weak signal copy.
So the Might Have Beens will have to wait til next year. Propagation-wise, this
could have been a 1000 QSO contest for me had the QRN been at the low levels we
had leading up to the contest. And the Euro totals could have been double, or
more if I could copy more than the strong ones. There is always hope for the
future.
PS My improvements this past Fall seemed to have helped. Reconnected all the
old radials and added 6 more to give 38 radials. The SWR stopped rising as I
added the final four, always a good sign. Then I adjusted the coke bottle
shunt inductor to give a 1:1 swr at 1825 khz. And finally added an UN-UN to
the end of the coax/antenna junction.
The RG-6 on the SAL had exhibited intermittant loss of F/B so I replaced the
twist on catv connectors at the outdoor splice, with watertight DXE connectors
using their "tool" - which seemed to solve that problem. Flipping the
8-direction SAL 30 controller often produced big changes in the rcvd signals.
Unfortunately, when the skip was bouncing between Eu/W1/VE and the West Coast, I
had to do a lot of flipping. But it kept me awake, and Sigs would go from
marginal to Q5.
PPS Never had a Beverage. Room for a 500 footer is marginal so will try an
RBOG if Santa comes through for me, to see if that helps with the QRN and weak
signal copy. It's an all RG-6 antenna and feed system, so I can add the
fittings indoors, and then uncoil it onto the frozen tundra.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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