CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW
Call: VE3EY
Operator(s): VE3EY
Station: VE3SY
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: ON
Operating Time (hrs): 43
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 218 11 26
80: 487 18 66
40: 622 27 75
20: 1393 31 100
15: 257 21 74
10: 47 10 25
------------------------------
Total: 3024 118 366 Total Score = 3,623,708
Club: Contest Club Ontario
Comments:
Perhaps this is too long of a story but I like to read them too.
This year score is up about 20 % from last year's mainly due to station
improvements. To compensate for declining sunspot numbers some antenna upgrades
were done at VE3SY's place this past summer.
Paul, VE3SY now has a second tower installed at his place which is a 72' tall
Trylon. The idea was to install an additional tribander which would be used for
the second radio and a small beam for 40 to replace an existing dipole which was
used in the past.
Unfortunately,the 2 El beam for 40 turned out to have some problems as the
existing 40m dipole would always beat it during the A/B comparisons. The 40m
yagi did not not yield any F/B when turned around, so it will have to come down
again.
A week before the contest, I have also installed a nearly full size 80 meter
vertical with some 32 L/4 radials. The vertical went up OK but as I was laying
out the radials, the darkness fell and about one quarter of them remained
tangled in the ground. I decided to come back on Thursday to bring up the
equipment and complete the work on the 80m vertical in Paul's backyard.
But as my luck would have it,on Thursday we got struck by our first snow
blizzard and everything was covered up by one foot of snow. Paul's place is
about 1 hour drive from my home and I barely made it through.
Lots of rewiring was done in Paul's shack to accommodate for SO2R. Paul
tirelessly resolved one problem after another until we got everything hooked up
the way we wanted. We used one of his old manual antenna switches which he
routed back through the front panel to allow for switching between the 80 meter
dipole and a vertical. A switch was just hanging on few coax runs right next to
my laptop screen. It turned out to be a very useful addition for 80m.
I was back to Paul's place on Friday, few hours before the start of the contest.
We are now both feeling good as both radios and amps are wired in and SO2R
works with no issues. The wind from previous night caused one element from the 2
El (inoperable) 40 m yagi to tilt which prevented it to rotate due to 80 meter
dipole which was hung on top of the tower just beneath the yagis. In this state
it would be impossible to rotate the tribander for the 2nd radio which was
installed some 8 ft above the 40m yagi. I strapped myself in the climbing belt
and went up the 72 foot Trylon with a 10 foot aluminum tubing in one hand.
Luckily, at the top of the tower, I could reach the tilted element with the
stick and bring it back in place hoping there will be no more winds during the
contest weekend.
A new addition to the contest hardware was also a better amplifier which I have
just acquired few weeks before the contest. My first legal limit amp - a QRO
HF-2500 replacing my ancient MLA-2500. The new amp made a real difference. Not
only for some additional power, but in the way it handled the workload so
easily. It ran all weekend long without ever breaking a sweat.
The amp came with some major concessions I had to give back to my XYL. I am not
going to go into a great detail here but it has something to do with doing
dishes for which the assignment is to end sometimes in the middle of the next
solar cycle :-)
As everyone would expect, the low bands were just great. Tons of thundering EU
stations everywhere. The biggest signal on 80 that I heard was YL0A. My
headphones almost fell off when he called me.
As for the upper bands, 20m was a busiest band for me. I was also hopping for
EU opening on 15 though,which to me did not occur on first day (or maybe I
missed it) but it was better on Sunday. Lots of EU mults were worked on Sunday
on 15 which would have been missed otherwise. I was able to run EU maybe for
just over on hour on 15 after which only the loudest EU stations were still
heard around.
Despite having SO2R,I am embarrassed to say (after analyzing the log) that I
have failed to work GW,PA,UA2F,YL,EU,GI,GM,LA,OZ and some other EUs on 40
meters. I guess SO2R technique is something that doesn't come with one or two
contests.
Murphy was away from the bands and from the ham gear busy "fixing" my car
outside. After the contest ended, I found out that my car didn't want to start.
Paul did not think it is a good idea to try anything after he and his wife
Marg, VE3RE helped me push the disabled vehicle into their garage for closer
inspection. I stayed at their house another night.
Next morning I had a truck tow my car into a local (well known) auto shop. They
diagnosed the fault and said they have to order a part from a Nissan dealership
from just downtown Kitchener. Some mishap happened between two of them and the
part did not arrive until about 7 PM in the evening while I was walking around
with hands in my pockets tired and missing a day from work. When the courier
delivered the part I saw the invoice price from Nissan which was about 36$.
The local shop charged me ten times that and they threw in a 'free' oil change.
Oh well.
To me the contest was a success and I was very happy with its outcome.
Obviously, this would never happen without Paul, VE3SY and Margaret, VE3RE who
helped so much before and during the contest to make. I am grateful to them for
having me as a guest op and for everything they have done to help me during my
troubles.
Equipment used:
Radio #1: FT-1000MP MKV + QRO HF-2500
Radio #2: FT-1000MP + Drake L4B
Antennas:
15/10 meters: 3 El monoband yagi @ 90' and 94'
20 meters: 4 El monoband yagi @ 81'
40 meters: dipole
80 meters: 1/4 L vertical and dipole
160 meters: Inv vee
Cuscraft A4S @ 82' for 2nd radio.
Logger: Win-Test 2.20
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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