CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW
Call: VY2TT
Operator(s): K6LA
Station: VY2SS
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: PEI
Operating Time (hrs): 48
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
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160: 187 10 21
80: 407 14 50
40: 1285 29 96
20: 1187 29 94
15: 749 24 93
10: 497 22 76
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Total: 4312 128 430 Total Score = 6,124,608
Club: Southern California Contest Club
Comments:
The best laid plans of mice and hams oft go astray. This was certainly the case
for me in this contest. For the first time in my four trips to contest at Robby,
VY2SS? place in PEI, (which is soon to be my place as I am buying it, fixing it
up and making it a turnkey rental QTH) everything was checked out and ready a
full day in advance, with the exception of the south tribander that was
reinstalled by noon on Friday. It had lost ½ the driven element a few days
earlier in big storm. The new equipment, an Icom 756 Pro II and Alpha 87A (to
complement the Kenwood TS950S and Alpha 91B) was in place. The new TopTen
DXDoubler SO2R box was hooked up and working fine. NA was reading both radios,
after some playing with settings to get the Icom recognized. The 756 doesn?t
have a phone patch output, but we were able to steal audio from the ACC jack and
even though there was an impedance mismatch, I was still able to get both radios
to record on the 2nd computer. I actually got a 3 hour nap in on Friday
afternoon.
I started on 40 since I wanted to take advantage of the full size M2 3 element
yagi at 150? that was recently installed. I wanted be relatively high in the
band as the SWR is 1:1 at 7060 and I thought it would be easier to hold a
frequency there. Wrong! At 0004Z I was clobbered. I don?t remember if it was a
BC station, RTTY or what, but it wasn?t the way I wanted to start. After that I
was able to keep a steady, but moderate, rate on the low bands. There is a 4
Square on 80 and an inverted V hung from the 150? tower. I wanted to take
advantage of those low band antennas and I didn?t hit 20 until the 1000Z hour.
At 1110Z, on 20 meters as I was having the best run of the contest so far,
Murphy struck BIG TIME. The Alpha 87A faulted and wouldn?t recover. It took 10
minutes of zero QSOs to put the old back up Dentron amp on the 756 and discover
the 756 wouldn?t put out any power. Just at that time, Robby walked in to tell
me he had a problem and had to go to work. I told him I had a bigger problem.
Robby called Bill, VY2LI, and Bill agreed to bring over his Yaesu 990 so I could
keep the SO2R going. Bill arrived less than 30 minutes later. Before I could get
it installed Robby called. On his way to work Robby had realized that what had
taken out the 756 and 87A was the same problem that had taken out the 950 and
Robby?s 756 earlier in the year ? the W0MLY SO2R antenna switchbox that uses 180
volts in its stepper motor. That made sense to me because years earlier when I
was using that antenna switch at home, I had twice lost 950s to what Kenwood
Repair swore were lightening strikes.
Switching bands became an ordeal of pulling coax and unscrewing SO-239s. I also
lost the ability to have NA readout the radios. The Yaesu didn?t have the
capability and when I was putting it in place I must have done something to mess
up the 950 cabling. A number of times after that I forgot to change the band
setting in NA and wound up duping guys. I can only hope I was able to catch them
all. After a few times I put a note on amp?s bandswitch to change NA as a
reminder.
It took 45 minutes during prime time to get back on the air since I had to swap
radios and reconfigure antennas for manual switching. At least after that things
got good and I had the best rates of the contest for 7 solid hours. The next
issue I had to deal with was Sunday morning when Robby told me the winds had
broken a large branch that was up against the power lines and only a guy wire
from the big tower was keeping the branch from taking out the electricity. Robby
and Bill were able to cut the branch down without any loss of power.
I was pleased with the QSO numbers, but it is clear I need to learn more about
getting the mult count up from the Maritimes. It sure is easier to keep awake
and in the chair when the rates are good. Can?t wait to do it again.
73, Ken, K6LA/VY2TT
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