Murphy was certainly an active participant in this particular
exercise. After telling everyone I would be here and asking
for advice on how to tackle top band, the final results were
a bit disappointing.
Wednesday morning, ten minutes before sunrise, just after hearing that
my signal was building nicely in the US, it began to snow. The snow
here often is highly charged, and no sooner had I begun to hear arcing
in the tuner than I realized that the final in my FT-757 was zapped and
the output was down to 25 watts and dropping fast. Several diodes need
replacing, and probably one of the final transistors.
Thursday, the backup TS-50 also went south, and now puts out a half watt.
I'm still looking into that one, and could use some help.
Thanks to the generosity of Fred, C31HK, I was able to borrow his ageing
TS-830 in order to get on the air for the contest. Fred is a non-CW
op who is also rabidly anti-contest. The lack of a narrow CW filter was
not a big problem given the effective VBT and IF shift and external audio
filters. However, the rig only has one VFO, so I could not CQ in the
window and listen elsewhere as planned. There was no point in trying
to listen in the window from here, as several humungous European signals
pretty well clobbered it. BTW, I did not hear a single US station CQ in
the window.
In the end, most of the US stations worked were from S&P. Most of the
Europeans were from running.
High Points:
Just being able to get on the air from here at all.
Working dozens of US stations on Sunday sunrise with great signals
all over the band. Too bad I could not establish a good run frequency
and work a bunch more.
Low Points:
Not working VP9AD despite calling for 10 minutes at my sunrise.
Hearing stateside stations begin to CQ on my run frequency, indicating
I was not putting enough RF over there.
Hearing Europeans with beverages working stateside stations on my run
frequency that I couldn't hear.
Still, it was a fun contest, and given the location here in a valley
which resembles the bottom of a barrel, I shouldn't have expected too
much. Thanks to everyone who worked me before, during, and after the
contest. As I am now without a rig for a few weeks, don't expect to
see me on for any 160 skeds.
Please QSL via VE3GEJ. (5197 Second Ave, Niagara Falls, Canada L2E 4J8)
512 Qs 2707 pts 14 states 44 countries = 157,006
TS-830, TL-922
Dipole held up by 2 stakes in the ground on the side of a mountain
with the center angle about 150 degrees brought to the roof of
this 8 story building. Try to picture that one!
If I can fix one of the rigs, look for me in the ARRL CW test on Feb 17.
Has anyone got a TS-50 service manual who could help with some questions?
All I have is a schematic.
Peter
AB6WM/VE3SUN/C31LJ
-- peterj@netcom.com
URL: http://mall.turnpike.net/~jc/
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