Stew Perry Topband Challenge
Call: K1WHS
Operator(s): K1WHS
Station: K1WHS
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: FN43mj
Operating Time (hrs): 6
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 451 Total Score = 2,550
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
Well, time has really caught up with me. I was really looking forward to the
Stew Perry. I was also hard at work re building my old 75A4 receiver and was
staying up until 3 AM for a few nites leading up to the Stew. It sure was fun
repairing and documenting all the changes. When the Stew rolled around, I was
beat. I started at about 5 PM local time. Sunset is a bit after 4 PM. The band
was hopping and I worked over 100 stations in the first hour. That is good for
me with my poor CW skills and tin ear. I could tell that I was tired, and I
mutilated one QSO by accidentally deleting all evidence of a perfectly good
contact with a strong N3 station in PA. (OOPS!) My brother, K0ZK just happened
to show up at 5 PM and so I let him play around and he had fun while I went and
had dinner. When I got back, I was even more tired and realized that I was
having way too much trouble copying calls. It dawned on me that I was a menace
to myself when I tried to work an EU station with XX in the suffix. I copied it
as YY. Now a Y does not sound anything like an X, but in my defense, Y is next
to X in the alphabet. I went to sleep for a few hours and got up at 04:30 UT and
went back to the shack. Brother Arn had left so I got back on and made Qs for
about 3 hours, but I still felt awful and had trouble concentrating. Things were
working OK I guess. I worked a few HI stations and a bunch of west coasters. I
have a K3 and rigged up a simple RX switch to select beverages. I can
independently choose any beverage wire for each antenna input: Main or Aux RX
antenna for the 2nd receiver. I would have the NE beverage in one ear and the
west beverage in my other ear so I could pull stations out of the noiuse a bit
faster. It worked great, but added some noise to the circuit. Still it was great
to help speed things up. I quit operating with Europe still coming in. It was
about 03:30 UT. Signals seemed not all that strong, but maybe I was hearing 100
watt stations, Who knows? I went to sleep, and it sure felt good.
One interesting thing I tried was to drag out my just renotated Collins 75A4
receiver and hook it up to the 160M receiving antennas and listen to the huge
pile of stations on a receiver designed in 1954. The 75A4 did remarkably well,
but it has been highly modified with triode mixers, and an extra 2 kHz
mechanical filter in the IF strip. I also have a 300 Hz Collins crystal filter
in filter position #3 as well as some nifty AVC mods, and my brother and I used
that 300 Hz filter to tune around. He scoffed when I first told him I wanted to
drag out the 75A4, but after listening to it awhile, he had to admit that it
sounded pretty good and did a good job on the crowded band. If it had a slower
tuning rate, I might be inclined to use it more!
Hopefully next year I am better rested for the Stew, although Father Time
isn't helping my situation. At 74, I'll probably have to stop often for cookies
and warm milk.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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