Decided that I might try 40 Phone for the WPX. Threw up a couple of
corner-fed half squares: one on Eu and the other SA/JA. Better than 2 S
units difference in signals in the favored/unfavored directions. SWR
about 1.4 across mid-part of the band. Orion I set to go.
OOOO arrived along with a major Kansas thunderstorm with lightning across
the sky in all directions. No way would I risk the Orion (and me) in
that.
Next evening no lightning, but major lightning QRN all night. Finally
decided to try one of the DX packets to find a few DX signals as they were
all requiring lots of listening to see who was interesting. Turns out
that I found more signals just tuning than following the BB and in many
cases the WEB calls were wrong. I won't attempt that again with one
exception: I normally work single band so I may follow another band to
pick up the countries I don't have confirmed. Since they don't count for
single band, that shouldn't be cheating. Weather cleared late Sunday in
time to take down the antennas! A lot of work for 75 contacts.
Question: What is worse than no SWR bridge? Four! Tuned up with the
CIA-HF, had the LP-100 in line, SWR indicator on Orion, and reflected
power on the ACOM. None matched: reading from 1.4 to 2.3 at the same
time.
N0UU
_______________________________________________
CQ-Contest mailing list
CQ-Contest@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
|