ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, CW
Call: W4ZW
Operator(s): W4ZW
Station: W4ZW
Class: SO Unlimited HP
QTH: WCF
Operating Time (hrs): 16
Summary:
Band QSOs
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160: 0
80: 10
40: 314
20: 238
15: 181
10: 87
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Total: 830 Sections = 80 Total Score = 132,800
Club: Florida Contest Group
Comments:
Soapbox:
Had a guest Op this SS. Fellow by the name of Murphy. Think you all
might have met him once or twice. So many things went wrong I think
Murphy planned on staying awhile.
I entered Unlimited at the last minuet because I received my Amp back
early this past week. I can run HP on 10 and 15, and about 300-600
watts on 20 depending whether the kids are watching DSS or a video in
the media room next to the shack. Can't run the amp on 40 and 80, so
unlimited gave me options where I could use HP where I wanted.
Put up my 80M loop on Thursday. Completely overhauled the shack on
Friday since the Amp was back, moving rigs around and recabling the
mess. Checked the antennas, and the loop was great on 80M!
About two hours before SS stars, checked the loop and SWR was off the
charts. Traced the problem to the matching unit which fell apart in my
hands when I took it down. The cable looked rotten, and sure enough the
shield was black inside from all this ocean all the way back to the
hogshead entry in the roof. Wow, have to cut and install new cable and
fish it down to the rigs! Better now than in the dark. Finally
finished just before the start. Off I go running on 10M for all of 15
minutes before I had a family emergency to handle. Getting kids to two
different places at once. Oh well, I had planned three hours off for
this dinner deal. Into my tux and off to the charity dinner. Finally
stole back by 10PM. So much for off time. Running like crazy on 40M
and the receiver has periods of noise black outs and the SWR runs wild
then settles back down. Decide the FT1000MP is sick, so redo the rig
layouts and put the FT1000D into number 1 spot. Wow, SWR is now
infinity. Off to 80. Running like crazy on the loop and suddenly it
quits. Infinite SWR. One side of the 40M driven element appears to be
open. At 2:30AM, not much doing on the high bands. Spend another hour
rerouting cables, and running new feed lines. Still out.
Fed up, exhausted, so go to take a nap at 4:00. Back at 6:30AM.
Oceanside beam doesn't like the amp. Trips the amp and locks the
computer. RF back in the shack. Start installing toroids everywhere.
Take the tuner and every nonessential cable out of the line. RF still
floating around. Hey, unlimited says I can also run QRP! SO I run all
of about 20 watts on the FT1000D. This S&Ping reminds me of our FD
QRPing sessions.
Ears hurt, so time for headphone change. Wow, headphones were the RF
pick-up! New phones let the oceanside Yagi run with the AMP. Whoa,
smoking now! But it's already noon and I'm exhausted from all this
work. Well, let's go for the sweep. Only need DE, NWT, and NL. VO1
calls in, and snag Jay in his pile-up. Finally found a DE in the QRPers
who are out in droves Sunday afternoon. Got the sweep, but a sorry
score from my expectations. Pulled the plug early. Kinda like that
rabbit and skunk story in the woods. I'd had all I could stand!
Heard/worked lots of FCGers and saw us spotted on the nodes. Good show
fellows! Sorry I had so much trouble copying on back scatter and ground
wave.
Oh well, there's always next year!
Jon Hamlet, W4ZW
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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