W0SD-- WD0T,op S/O HP South Dakota
Breakdown, ants:
160 0 Inv. V@200ft, 1/4wave vert.
80 359 Inv V @160ft, Inv V @100ft
40 638 3 ele yagi at 75ft, 2ele quad top at 110ft (power divided)
20 460 2-204BA's 135ft and 55ft
15 4 155BAS at 75ft
10 0 2-105BAS at 110ft and 55ft
===============
1461 X 77 = 224,994- Missed WYO
Other assorted dipoles for the second rig.
Inside Equip:
TS950SDX (main rig), TS940S(second rig, no amp), 8877 amp 80-10, HF2500 amp
160m, CT9.22 logging
No cats,dogs, or pet skunks,etc.. left them at home!
Comments:
Started out on 20m with a poor run frequency and a poor first hour. Had
constant QRM from people calling CQ on top of me and contest exchanges from
other stations at the same time. I also made a hardware error by pointing
the top and bottom 20m yagis in opposite directions in phase. Things
started to happen once I repositioned the bottom 204 towards the east coast.
Anyhow it was frustrating the first hour trying to figure out what I was
going to do, as there was about 1 nanohertz of open band space to move into,
so that wasn't an option. After the initial mistakes, things settled down
to normal on 20m. The band sounded good but not excellent most of the
weekend.
The move to 40m later was really exciting. Ed has done tons of work putting
up the 3 ele full size yagi and the 2 element quad. Both those antennas
work great alone and even better when power divided. Could really work both
directions effectively until the band went long. Then had European stations
calling me wanting QSO's for their contest and figured its time to try 80m.
The band really lengthened out early judging by the listening I had done
earlier and I had to tell myself to get off of 20m early enough to catch the
decent time on 40m. Sunday morning was also real good on 40m, in fact almost
all day Sunday I could work east coast with 100w on the second rig. Very
unusual.
Usually on 80m from SD, its real tough getting through to the east and west
coast. Not this time after Ed erected his 200ft Rohn 25G tower this summer
and installed the inverted V dipole at 160ft. It was a killer all nite long
and really made the difference this year on keeping the rate up on 80m. I
was on late into the nite on 80m , around 0936 before taking off time, and
the rate meter was consistently around 60 for last 10 and last 100 qso's, so
I figured why sleep??
Sunday was a typical Sunday. Sit and call CQ and slowly work stations, and
use the second radio to pick up Q's on another band. I listened
sporadically on 15m and did hear some activity, but most of the stations
were skipping overhead and were weak. Only the KP3, KP4 stations and a few
East Coast and Florida stations were loud enough to work easily. Spent only
enough time here to work 4 stations with one multiplier among the 4 QSO's.
Spent most of the day on 20 with the second rig on 40m until evening, then
80m. Didn't hear a peep out of 10m, and 160m had a few signals on it late
Sat. evening, but didn't sound good enough to make anything happen.
Another interesting thing I finally figured out late into the contest was
the TS950SDX could be operated with both 500 Hertz I.F. CW filters IN and
still be broad enough to hear the off frequency callers. That was a real
hand against forehead experience! Haven't operated that radio enough prior
to this contest to know that. Now I won't forget it! Anyhow, that made a
big difference in copying ability.
Others have commented about the QSB on 40m, guess I did notice some of that,
but not real bad. I did notice a strange QSB on 20m however early Sunday
morning with the W5 stations, they would be loud one second and gone the
next. Didn't matter what I did with the stack.
Did have a few stations just jump on frequency and start calling CQ in the
middle of an exchange, other than the first hour which was real bad. Most
however asked if the frequency was in use or sent a ? to check, no problem
with that.
Would like to especially thank Ed, W0SD and Edith WA0UFS for letting me
invade their QTH for the contest, and keeping me well fed for the event.
Also, for all the massive amount of work they have put into the station in
the last 2 years, and still continuing on with that. They have both done a
SUPER job!
Thanks again for the great time and all the Q's.
73, todd
wd0t
rate sheet to follow!
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