ARRL 10-Meter Contest
Call: AA4LR State: GA Category: CW Only Low Power
Mode QSOs Points Mults
10CW 100 404 38
10SSB 0 0 0
Total: 100 404 38 claimed score: 15,352
Hours of Operation: 6.4
Club: South East Contest Club
Equipment:
TS430S running 80 watts out
Homebrew 20-year old CW keyer
10m delta loop in attic at 25'
80m doublet at 15', fed with Murch UT-2000A tuner
R7000
Comments:
Only managed a little part-time operation. Both european openings were
out, as I had family commitments each morning, and we went out Friday,
Saturday and Sunday night. Still managed to squeeze in a little more than
6 hours of operating time. This is my personal best for a CW-only entry,
beating last years 2,024 points easily.
As I get a little better at CW, these contests are becoming more fun. I
need to heed W4AN's advice and get on the air every day.
The 10m delta loop was constructed in less than 2 hours on Thursday. It
turned out to be my main antenna, although sometimes the 80m doublet was
louder. The R7000 was never better than these, although there may be
something wrong with its feedline. The delta loop worked well, despite
using about 100 feet of questionable RG-8X as a feedline. I used a gamma
match to feed the loop, and tuning it up with a borrowed MFJ-249 was
pretty easy. I'm now considering attic-mounted loops for 15m and 20m.
Stupid stunt of the contest: While I worked a number of stations,
including a couple of europeans, an african, the carribean, south
america, and even new zealand, signals seemed really "down" most of the
contest. Even the strongest stations seemed barely out of the noise.
After about 70+ QSOs, I realised I had operated 5+ hours with the 20 db
antenna attenuator turned on! Doh! Turned if off, and signal levels
really popped up. Rate climbed appreciably.
Interesting propagation. At midnight local time on Friday, there clearly
was an opening to the carribean and points west, but not many stations
on. (Of course, it could be that I had the stupid attenuator turned
on....)
Worked several SECC members, including K4BAI, W4AN, KD3GC, K2UFT, W1RR.
Heard some others, but wasn't able to make contact.
Bill Coleman, AA4LR, PP-ASEL Mail: aa4lr@radio.org
Quote: "Not within a thousand years will man ever fly!"
-- Wilbur Wright, 1901
--
FAQ on WWW: http://www.contesting.com/3830faq.html
Submissions: 3830@contesting.com
Administrative requests: 3830-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems: owner-3830@contesting.com
|