ARRL 160-Meter Contest
Call: K9YC
Operator(s): K9YC
Station: K9YC
Class: M/S HP
QTH: SCV
Operating Time (hrs): 27
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 740 Sections = 76 Countries = 13 Total Score = 145,604
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
Missed VE4, NL, PR (never heard them or saw a spot) and NNY (spotted
once, heard him well, but too early for him to hear me). Here at my
quiet QTH in the Santa Cruz Mountains, I start hearing a lot of east
coast signals Q5 around their sunset, but it's at least 3-4 hours
before I can get them to hear me.
Holdouts: VT, WTX, VE2 came before midnight Saturday. RI, NLI, and
WPA around East Coast sunrise Sunday. Finally, ND at 6:14 am PST,
about an hour after his sunrise! Things got pretty slow after 11PM
Saturday evening -- an average of only 14/hr -- but yielded 5 mults
and 7 DX Q's. Persistance pays off!
DX: 37-JA, 4-UA0, C6, CM, P4, PJ2, VP2M, XE, E51, ZL, HI, HL, FO.
CM and HI were new countries for me on 160, bringing me up to 61.
(Unlike some others, who I view as big-time cheaters, I've started
from scratch on DXCC after moving more than halfway across the
continent).
ARRL 160 is probably my favorite contest, and last year was my first
from CA -- 582 x 79 (74 sections, 5 DX) for 97,407. That was my
trusty TS850, top-loaded vertical with 40 70-ft radials, 100 ft high
dipole, and two reversible Beverages. I've been working toward
improving on that ever since.
Buying an MP and learning to use the 2nd VFO to S&P while running on
the main VFO was the first step. Butt in the chair time at N6RO for
several contests was a big help. Many thanks to WX5S, WA6O, K7NV,
and Ken for the mentoring. In the days leading up to the contest, I
added 20 radials >100 ft.
The final improvement came from reading N6LF's suggestion to tune a
vertical a bit long (so that Zs = 50 +j40), then adding series C to
tune out the inductance. It seemed to me that this should reduce the
ground loss (and the wire loss), because the resulting Rr is higher.
My top-loaded vertical IS a bit long, so I tried it. Some careful
comparitive signal reports from K6MM Friday afternoon were that it
gave me a fractional S-unit, and pulled my barefoot MP a bit higher
with respect to his S8 noise level!
Last year, I actively switched between the high dipole and the
vertical. I found that in daylight and a few hours before/after the
transition in darkness, the vertical was consistently a lot better
(even for short distances), but that in full darkness, the dipole
could often be better at both long and short distances. This year, I
hoped to use the dipole, but chose not to, because I wasn't able to
perform some important maintenance on it. High power had already
melted the rope holding up one end of it, and it fell to the ground.
A month ago, I got it back in the air with an insulator on that end,
but some trees in the way prevented me from adding the insulator to
the other end. So to avoid another expensive failure (tree climbers
make good money!), I stuck with the vertical this time around.
Finally, some mental prep time was a big help. I went to bed
Saturday morning missing 11 mults. With my morning (afternoon,
actually) coffee, I studied old logs to learn what stations worked
160 in those sections, when they operated, and whether they called
CQ or worked S&P. I also used qrz.com and vanityhq.com to figure out
which of the guys I worked a few years back were no longer licensed.
I knew to expect W1OP (a club station) to start running after 0800Z,
that the last topbanders in NNY and VE4 had died a few years ago,
that W2HLI and NT2A were the last guys in NLI, that W0ZTL might be
on for a while Friday evening, but hated pileups and would quickly
disappear, and that other small ND stations had a habit of showing
up around sunrise Sunday morning. I also knew the calls of the 160
ops in all of those sections, as well as the guys in RI and WTX who
worked 80CW in SS.
My hat is off to W7RN, N6RO, W6NV, KX7M, and N6WG, all of whom have
already posted great scores, and to N6RK, who I expect to do the
same. And MANY THANKS to those who spotted me (especially K7XC, who
must have spotted the entire band at least a half dozen times), and
to those who fired up small stations with makeshift antennas to
contribute Q's.
73,
Jim K9YC
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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