ARRL INTERNATIONAL DX CONTEST -- 1999
Call: K1TO Country: United States/South Florida
Mode: SSB Category: Multi Single
BAND QSOS PTS PTS/Q COUNTRIES
160 31 93 3.0 26
80 104 312 3.0 56
40 200 600 3.0 71
20 521 1563 3.0 118
15 406 1218 3.0 96
10 496 1488 3.0 105
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Totals 1758 5274 3.0 472 = 2,489,328
Operator List: K1TO, WD4AHZ, KG4BWE (Jan, YL)
Club Affiliation: Florida Contest Group
Unlike many others who lamented the poor condx, I have not
enjoyed a phone contest this much in a LONG time!
Decided Friday afternoon to keep the station relatively active instead of
just piddling around. Got busy fixing things and putting the station
together. Found that the hardline connectors were not holding up well.
Will have to chase the CATV truck soon.
With crummy condx on Sunday, we were relegated to S & P. We had a
blast for many hours with me tuning and lining 'em up, Jan calling and
working them and Ron spotting stuff on the other antennas or Beverages.
Jan evoked many comments from the DX (and stateside!) folks! In the
last 17 hours of the contest, I operated (fully that is) for 25 minutes -- my
idea of a fun phone test!
Had borrowed a FT-1000MP and that seemed to help keep me interested.
My aging TS-930s just aren't as good on SSB, I don't believe. Did have
trouble getting the anti-VOX set to a position that would not trip constantly.
Did not have much trouble abiding by the "6 band change per hour" rule.
We moved very few mults, so that certainly eased that "burden".
Tried to actively spot everything to keep everyone's band map up to date.
Spots went out under the cover of "K4OJ" who graciously provided his call
for that purpose, then avoided any SSB operation himself.
Got called "W1TO" a heckuva lot, especially early on. Guess I need to
get this call on the air more again!
160 - Got the Inv-L fixed Saturday afternoon, so the 32/26 was only on
Saturday night. Felt like just another signal on the band. Heard RW2F
very well near their SR listening split, but not enough signal on my end
to even get a "QRZ?". Also no luck with a VERY loud IR4T and a much
weaker IR1A.
75 - Inv vee seemed to work quite well. Spent close to an hour
shortening the vee and snaking the ends across the growing field
of wires (Beverages and elevated radials) and between the elements
of the side-mounted yagis. Surprised at how many Europeans
commented on our signal. Probably just due to a general lack of FL
activity and ANY signal from here sounded good. LY5W moved US
to 75.
40 - 2L @ 87'. This antenna really seemed to work well. Ron did the
graveyard shift Sat. night and rousted up DU9RG b4 the packet crowd
found him. Generally good reports from all over. Decent Eu. run early
Sat. eve. and E44/OZ6ACD called in for a new one!
Did not borrow the computer control for the 'MP, so spent an eternity
dialing or typing in xmit frequencies (also on 75, of course).
20 - 4L @ 93' rotary, 4L @ 46' fixed to Eu. This was a "hard-wired"
stack on CW which hurt a lot in non-Eu directions. Did not have time
to diagnose the underlying cause, so just unplugged the 2 ants. from
the StackMatch box and used them independently. Probably the best
move of the weekend. All of a sudden, 20 was fun again! Did find also
that the low antenna dominated to Europe late in the afternoons, despite
the poor condx. Ron was blown away by a pileup calling him at 0545Z
the first night of UA/UA9/etc!
Seemed like every Pacific station commented on the signal strength. I
vividly recall listening from CT to a WA4 in FL whose call I forget in the
late 70's run VKs/ZLs that were barely audible in New England with a
hilltop long boom 4/4 stack. Believe it or not, that memory was one of
the reasons I had considered FL propagation to be a long-term goal.
Took me nearly 20 years to get down here, but enjoying the heck out
of it so far!
15 - 4L @ 100' rotary, 4L @ 50' rotary, 4L @ 25' fixed SSE
All antennas were independent. Ron did both mornings, so I never got
a feel for how the band played. Sunday was point and shoot only as
described above. Never got any JA runs going here (or anywhere for
that matter) as I had hoped.
10 - 4/4/4 stack @ 87'/58'/29', 4L @ 56' rotary, 4L @ 33' fixed SSE
This band seemed to work well on Sat. Again discovered a stacking
problem with the middle yagi, so used the high and low antennas only.
Had several 100+ hours after getting up real late. South stuff was
workable on any of the antennas and the 33-footer was frequently the
loudest.
Had fun challenging ourselves to reach 100 countries on 10 late Sunday.
Really struggled with the close-in stuff. There was a distinct "curtain"
that allowed HP and YN to be strong while CO, ZF, HR and V3
were barely audible and unworkable. Interesting to wait for the
"curtain" to move slightly to allow the signals to come up dramatically.
This allowed us to knock off VP2M, HK0, HU (YS), TI, KP4, etc.
Never did work a CO or KG4 15 either and finally eked out a CO on 20
late Sunday after seeing and listening to what seemed like a hundred
unworkable spots for them!
73, Dan
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