Hi gang-
I had the pleasure of operating from A73A last week - exclusively on 160
meters.
I was able to operate the full night before the contest on CW. I put about
300 stations in the log - including two USA stations (K1UO and N4IS). On
SSB, I worked over 400 stations with VE1ZZ being my only North American
QSO. I had hoped to get on after the contest for a couple of hours on CW -
but we had a storm which made the band pretty much useless for the end of
the contest and after.
Our TX antenna was a 66 foot vertical with a top loading wire. It had two
elevated radials and was about 20 feet from the edge of the ocean. It had
a clear shot to the Northwest through Northeast which is where most of the
signals come from. I say "had" because within about 4 hours after the
finish of the contest - all of our antennas were down and packed away.
This was totally a field day style operation (as in years past).
On receive - I initially tried a BOG - or perhaps I should say a beverage
about six inches high. This appeared to have directivity based upon
observations of the AM radio stations during the daytime - but didn't seem
to really help much at night. For the contest - we also had a pair of K9AY
loops - in phase - 1/2 wave apart - and those were better than the
beverage. During times - I think I was hearing pretty well - but then we
had storms that seemed to start up around local midnight and the band got
very noisy (pinning the S meter on the TX antenna).
I think I will try this same arrangement of K9AY loops at home and see how
they compare to my current RX antennas.
On 80 meters - we had a 4 square - again - right at the waters edge. It
was about 200M away from the 160 antenna.
For the CW A71CV QSOs - I have the logs and will email an electronic copy
to A71CV to hopefully get posted to LOTW. The A73A QSLs appear to be via
EA7FTR per the QRZ.COM web page.
It was certainly interesting operating 160 meters from the other side of
the world. I hope to do a bit more of this as my current work assignment
has me coming to Asia on a semi-regular basis. I'll be operating the SS CW
using remote control while sitting in my hotel room here in Bangalore.
73 Tree N6TR
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Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com
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