ARRL DX Contest, SSB - 2020
Call: VP2MMF
Operator(s): K1XX
Station: VP2MMF
Class: SOAB LP
QTH: Montserrat
Operating Time (hrs): 38
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 170 43
80: 365 56
40: 485 55
20: 1790 61
15: 1514 49
10: 0 0
-------------------
Total: 4324 264 Total Score = 3,422,232
Club:
Comments:
This contest was planned to be a year of change. Besides the ever changing
compliment of antennas, I decided to give SO2R a whirl and, at the same time,
try DXLog. I felt that being at the bottom of the sunspot cycle would be the
fall guy when the operator was not up for all the change.
I guess I will let the numbers speak for themselves.
For those not aware, the station is located at the Gingerbread Hill guest house
on the island of Montserrat in the Caribbean. (You'd be surprised how many
times I was asked my location during the contest!). Operation is Field Day
style with everything set up before the contest and then taken down right
afterwards. This year was a treat for me because W1MD, K1QX, and K1EP did all
the heavy lifting setup for their VP2MSS operation during ARRL CW. My
compliments to Marty, Craig, and Ed. The owners of Gingerbread Hill were also
nice enough to allow most of the antennas to stay up after the CW ops left and I
arrived. The sour part of the deal is that I had to remove all the antennas and
pack up. By mid-afternoon on Monday, everything was down and dumped into
band-specific piles for pack up. On Tuesday, everything was packed and we could
now return Gingerbread Hill to normal tourist activity. Just a side note; Saint
Patrick's day is a big event on Montserrat. Normally, there's about 5,000
residents on the island. For the Saint Patrick's day festivities, everyone's
preparing for the population to double.
At this point in the sunspot cycle, I knew the contest would be a struggle at
night. The high bands, with all that room, would shutdown near sunset and I'd
be relegated to whatever hole in the low bands the big guns managed to miss. As
I said earlier, the antennas are in somewhat of a constant state of change as I
look for better better performance. After this contest, I'm pretty content with
the current lineup with one exception:
160 - Inverted L with K2AV folded counterpoise.
80 - 1/4 wave vertical using 22m Spider pole and 64, 1/8th-wave radials
40 - phased 1/4 wave verticals using 18m spider poles with 32 1/8th-wave
radials under each vertical
20-10 - TH6 at 50 feet overlooking the Caribbean, land slopes down 400 feet over
1/2 mile to the water
K9AY loop for receiving
I still don't know what to do about 40 meters. I few years ago I managed over
1100 Qs on 40 with a pair of phased inverted Vs. Maybe it's time to visit that
arrangement again.
The K9AY receiving loop was fantastic on 80 and 160. I constantly had 1-2 S
unit signal-to-noise improvements when using the K9AY vs the transmitting
antenna. It made a lot of difference. I don't think I used the 80/160
transmitting antennas for receiving at all during the contest. This year was my
best ever for mults on both 80 and 160.
One other noise thing. A few years ago I got some indications that the a/c
adapter for my ancient laptop was radiating noise in the low bands. The same
thing happened a couple other contests, but never to the degree that I could
definitively say the adapter was the culprit. W1MD keeps telling me to get rid
of the laptop, but he also refuses to refund its replacement or even find a
replacement that meets my requirements.
After the last noisy episode during CQWW SSB, I took a second a/c adapter and
housed it in its own metal box with additional a/c input and dc output
filtering. (Check out the info in KA7OEI's blog.) One evening before the
contest I noticed an increase in the 80-meter noise level. I quickly did some
testing using the old and newly-boxed adapter. It seems the old adapter was
temperature sensitive and started producing low-band noise as it got hotter.
So if you are hunting for low-band noise sources, make sure to checkout the a/c
adapter when using a laptop.
Last, I want to end on bit of a sour note.
One raspberry to the folks who bust my call sign at least once during each
contest. No, I am not PV2MMF or VP2MFF.
And two raspberries to the otherwise competent operators who then insist on
calling without listening for my call. I won't mention any of their calls, but
you'd recognize them too.
All in all, a satisfying end to this contest. After the first night I wouldn't
have made that statement. However, having stations like VP8 and VY0 call in
during my runs does make a 100-watt guy feel good. Plus, the 15-meter opening
on Saturday was fantastic for the bottom of the cycle.
73 charlie, vp2mmf/k1xx
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