CQ WW SUMMARY SHEET
Contest Dates : 27-Nov-98, 28-Nov-98
Callsign Used : VE2 / N6ZZ
Operator : N6ZZ
Category : SOAB - HP
Name : Phil Goetz
Address : P.O. Box 1234
City/State/Zip : Alto, NM 88312
Contest QTH: Sept-Iles, Quebec, CANADA <----- Zone 2
BAND Raw QSOs Valid QSOs Points Countries Zones
___________________________________________________________
160CW 360 351 717 31 13
80CW 660 653 1489 68 18
40CW 806 793 1826 75 23
20CW 978 963 2412 84 29
15CW 1335 1298 3196 85 28
10CW 1316 1296 3405 83 27
___________________________________________________________
Totals 5455 5354 13045 426 138
Final Score = 7,357,380 points.
Hardware: TS-850, Alpha 78, Tribander and 160-80-40 inverted vee on a 60-foot
tower. 500 foot beverage. Well-travelled Toshiba laptop.
Software: TR Log
Hey, wasn't this one fun? Conditions were good enough that the decisions
regarding what band to be on, whether to be running or tracking down
multipliers, and where to point the antenna became even more critical than
usual. Since I have a tendency to operate from a variety of locations and
stations, it's hard to make year-to-year comparisons, but I can't recall ever
hearing all of the bands sounding as good as they did during the past weekend.
Yeah, 10 meters was pretty hot, but probably the most memorable single contact
was a 160 meter gem with VK6HD.
Operation was from the club station (VE2CSI) in Sept-Iles, Quebec.
Diary Notes:
Tuesday: Arrive 8PM
Wednesday: Set up station. Determine that one of the two 500 hz filters in
the 850 is trashed. Sept-Iles does not have a Kenwood repair facility.
Decide that one filter will have to do. Determine that the 80 meter inverted
vee's resonant frequency of 3800 is not acceptable for a CW contest. Go
outside to add tails to the antenna, and notice that it's night. Local time
is 3:30PM Welcome to the northern latitudes. Low bands sound noisy. Find
some wire for a beverage.
Thursday: Avoid another Thanksgiving in the States for about the 10th
consecutive year. Add tails to the 80 meter element. Go to lumber yard and
buy some 8-foot sticks to support the beverage. Discover that there is no
solder in the shack. Go to Radio Shack to buy solder. Go to Wal-Mart to buy
hose clamps for ground rod. Aside from not having a local Kenwood repair
facility, this place has almost everything else!
String beverage in the woods. Didn't buy enough 8-foot sticks. Tape antenna
to conveniently-placed pine trees. Had forgotten how difficult it is to climb
untrimmed pine trees. Heed the advice of locals and tie pieces of crepe paper
onto beverage so that it is clearly visible to snowmobilers who frequent the
woods. It's getting dark already.
Go inside, antenna sounds great. Go to hotel to get some sleep.
Friday: Snow starts falling at 5AM. There's no local TV station, and most
stuff is in French anyway. By 9AM there's 5 inches of snow on the ground.
Snowplows and front loaders are clearing it as it falls. Decide to abandon my
plan for a late-afternoon nap and head for the station, a 4-mile drive. Stop
at grocery store to get food for the weekend. Snow keeps falling. Barely
manage to get the car into the radio club parking lot----it hasn't been
plowed. Putter around the shack for the rest of the day, lay out provisions,
look at propagation stuff, talk to a few people on the air. Snow stops
falling mid-afternoon. Glad I did the antenna work on Thursday!
Since the coax for the beverage runs across the parking lot, I can't hook it
up until the lot is plowed. Contest starts at 7PM, lot gets plowed about 9PM,
I run out between contacts to string the coax across the lot. 80 meters, here
I come.
Computer locks up when I transmit on 80. Reposition cables, put more chokes
on keying lines, finally ground computer to radio which seems to cure the
problem. Why is it that stuff that you've checked out before the contest
doesn't malfunction until you're in the contest?
Beverage sounds great, work some guys on 80, it sounds better on 40 too. Wait
until the time is right for 160!
At around 11:30PM, signals on the beverage suddenly become invisible.
Transmit antenna sounds normal, what happened? Take off the headphones and
hear the sound of snowmobiles. Evidently, the parking lot is a desirable
takeoff point into the woods for the snowmobile aficionados. One of them
evidently snagged the coax and pulled the coax out of a connector at place
where two pieces of coax are joined. Decide that I can't see it well enough
to attempt quick repairs at night and resume operating the transmitting
antenna. Plan to go out during the day and stick the center of the coax into
the barrel connector and tape the whole mess together. Contest rages on.
Early Sunday morning: Lack of sleep is catching up to me. Decide that I've
gotta get in a nap, but there's no bed or couch in the club. Floor is kinda
cold. End up sleeping for two hours on a table that's a foot shorter than I
am tall. Wake up feeling amazingly well rested.
Finish contest. Locals tell me snow is predicted for Monday. Go to hotel.
Monday: Get up at 7AM, quick breakfast, and over to the station to take down
the beverage. Find that it's a lot more difficult to work in the woods when
there's a foot of snow on the ground! Still, one of life's wonderful facts is
that taking antennas down is generally easier than putting 'em up. By 11AM,
the antenna wire and coax is coiled, the transformer removed from the Alpha
and bolted into the suitcase, clothes packed around the various pieces of
radio paraphernalia. Snow has started falling. I call the airport to see if
I can leave today instead of tomorrow. There's space on the 2PM flight. Time
to leave Zone 2 while I'm still ahead in the game!
--
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