Gotta get the new address signed up....
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rick Dougherty <rick at nq4i.com>
Date: Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 11:52 AM
Subject: Summer accomplishments
To: SECC <secc at contesting.com>
Hi all..I hope you are having a productive summer...we at the NQ4I station
have been hard at work once again....this summer we deemed it necessary to
get the new 80m 12 element
LPDA antenna up in the air...currently it is at 140 ft at the rear of the
antenna and a tree at 65 ft holds the front...VE7ZO, K4NV, WI4R, W4DD, and
KG4CUT dug another tower base for
a Rohn 45 tower that will be approx 175 or 185 ft tall...this will support
the far end of the 80m LPDA at 145 ft front to rear....K2AV has calculated
a 2 db or more improvement in the antennas performance since it will not be
sloped down, but will now be level...this antenna has approx 205 ft boom
length..is resonant from 3.4 mhz to 4.1 mhz without any need to be switched
and has approx 25
to 30 db front to back....listening on this antenna shows how quiet a low
band antenna can be.
On another front, the station suffered another lightning strike some time
back in May...with the help of the following individuals, W4DD, K4WP,
W4SVO we have designed a panel mounted MOV protection panel...every rotor
and control switch and every coax cable will connect to this panel and the
station grounding system has been heavily upgraded to support this
improvement...many hours of
time are still to be spent to insure that each connection is MOV protected
and commonly grounded. We had to run hundreds of feet of #2 copper wire
between the house grounds system and to tie it into the shack and tower
systems...still have 50% of the station to include in the plan...it's
coming along slowly and surely.
On the top of the new 185 ft tower will be a 5 element 20m Telrex antenna
that will be paired up on the 20m MULT station...and 10 ft below that at
175 ft will be an 8 element Telrex 15m antenna that will be dedicated to
the 15m MULT station.....
The past contest season, the following was accomplished by the op's from
NQ4I
1. CQWW SSB 2011...................#4 USA
2. CQWW CW 2011....................#4 USA ( and we beat the old existing
CQWW CW record score giving us the 4th highest ever cw score in the US!)
3. ARRL CW 2012.......................#4 USA
5. CQ160 CW .............................#3 USA single op assisted (W4IX)
6. CQ WPX 2012 .......................TIED #1 USA w/NR4M and new USA
Record!! Log checking will determine who will be number 1 and 2. Separated
by 8 qso's.
This year we welcome the following new Op's to NQ4I......Kevan Nason N4XL,
and Jim Rogers N4DU...both participated in the GA QSO party at K4HYB (
NQ4I) and will be part of the new season contest team....and joining us
from Central Fla is Glen WW4B....Glen is a CW op and does not care for
ssb...hi
Mark W4SVO has been dilegently adding ferrite cores to coax and control
lines at the station over the past years and has ramped up his effort in
that area...with the new grounding panel comingonline, Mark is making sure
that Ferrite cores will be used to minimize rfi and other problems across
the board..in fact we have so much Ferrite around that in order to use a
compass and check the heading of ana antenna one must get 200 ft away from
the shack to get a valid reading...hi
I look forward to hearing from other SECC'ers as to their progress and
improvements thay have made to their stations this summer...off contest
season is and has always been the time to re-build, and build something
bigger andd better...
This new tower has been a real experience so far...I am now 64 years
old..still climbing...do not enjoy it as much as I did in earlier
years....but still able...the old knees are not what they used to be
either....might need new ones...hi
Didn't make it to the Huntsville hamfest this year...heard that the
hospitality suite was really good though...and I am sure I missed seeing
some of you around the flea market or the other stands...
As always the station is always open for visitors and friends to stop
by...please phone first!...hi....I have an ample supply of antenna tubing
if anyone needs some to make a repair...and if you are designing a yagi, I
have a great software tool that makes it easy to design...
Thanks to all who got on an made some points for the club this past
season....
Looking forward with lots of anticipation to contest season....
de Rick NQ4I
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