California QSO Party
Call: K6NA
Operator(s): K6LL
Station: K6NA
Class: SO Power: HP
QTH: San Diego
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Mults
-----------------------------------
160: 0 0
80: 75 104
40: 86 0
20: 148 547
15: 191 431
10: 162 901
6:
2:
-----------------------------------
Total: 662 1983 58 = 345,216
Club: SCCC
Comments:
Many thanks to Glenn, K6NA, for letting me use his fine station.
I used one of my TS-850s, my old 486 computer, Glenn's little
Alpha 78 amplifier, and Glenn's antennas.
I got to Glenn's on Friday afternoon, just in time to help assemble the
low 20 meter Yagi, which was lying on the ground. The crew finally
finished tramming the antenna up to the sidearm after dark, with Glenn
up on the tower, working with illumination from headlights.
On Saturday, the contest was going according to plan, but when I tried to
go on 40 SSB, something failed in the 40 meter antenna, so I made ZERO
QSO's on 40 SSB, and only 86 QSO's on 40 CW! This antenna is a full size
3 el yagi at 140', and had been up for 17 years with no problems. Glenn
looked at the antenna on Sunday through binoculars, and thinks he can see
that one of the little wires that connect the balun to the driven element
is broken. After 17 years of vibrating, the wire must have been hanging on
by a thread, and the RF finally burned it through.
After the 40 failed, I tried to extend operating on 20 and 80, but 20 was
pretty much shot to the USA, and nobody was on 80 yet, so I had to take about
an hour of breaks. I turned the top antenna toward Japan during this period,
and heard a whole bunch of stations speaking to each other in Japanese,
so I decided to call "CQ CONTEST" to see what would happen. With the 5 el
at 140', and high power, it was like an H-Bomb fell on the frequency. All
the JA's stopped talking, and there was dead silence. After a few more CQ's,
one JA did answer, but he couldn't speak much English, I couldn't speak any
Japanese, and it took 3 minutes to get him into the log. It was obvious that
the JA idea wouldn't pan out.
Just as I noticed in the August SSB NAQP, there seems to be a bottomless pit
of new general class licensees on 20 meters, and, to a lesser extent, 15
meters. This really bodes well for future domestic phone contests, especially
for us West-Coasters.
It sure was great to hear Jay check in early on Saturday afternoon to
relieve the anxiety about the VE8 multiplier.
It will be interesting to see Dan, N6MJ's score from W6KP. He told me
on Saturday evening that, for some reason, he had to be off the air for
the final three hours of the contest. He was ahead of me throughout the
contest:
2149Z Sat, my nr 700, his 835
1615Z Sat, my nr 1615, his 1617
1347Z Sun, my nr 1809, his 1994
Thanks to everyone for all the Q's. See you in SS CW in less than 4 weeks.
Dave, K6LL
Yuma, AZ
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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