ARRL DX Contest, SSB
Call: 8P5A
Operator(s): W2SC
Station: 8P5A
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: Barbados
Operating Time (hrs): 47
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 353 55
80: 919 58
40: 1476 60
20: 1917 60
15: 2712 58
10: 655 4`
-------------------
Total: 8032 332 Total Score = 7,999,872
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
It has been a long time since I wrote a full story following a contest, and a
number of people have asked why. Mostly it has been a lack of time, but also
the stories had been a bit repetitive and, since I changed broadband suppliers,
I no longer have my website. However, after one of the strangest contest trips
in memory, I thought I would append this to the posting.
I was looking forward to this year's ARRL contest since I had missed both modes
last year, for the first time in nearly a decade. It was the first time in a
while that I had a realistic chance to win, and conditions for the CW weekend
were so good, some outstanding scores would be possible. In addition, I had no
major projects planned so, barring any unexpected maintenance, pre-contest setup
would be modest. My wife Kathleen has had health issues for the last year, and
this could be a relaxing week, at least by contest trip standards.
The trip was uneventful and we were among the first five people through
immigration and our two bags were among the first ten off of the plane. The
late afternoon traffic was surprisingly light and we got to the station around
4PM Tuesday with about two hours before sundown. The immediate project was to
install the receive 4-square in the field north of the station. With that
done, I brought up the station and Kathleen assembled the tarp canopy that we
use to shield the shack door from rain and direct sunlight. When I set up the
station each time, I remark at how complicated it has become. Besides the
usual radios and amps, I have a lot of custom gear for master station control
(antenna, Beverage, filter, headphone and CW switching), computer rotor
control, wattmeter, filters, and an antenna switching matrix.
The station came up well and the antennas and rotors all looked fine. We were
definitely off to a good start. We picked up some food and headed off to the
house we rent. Upon arriving at the house, the owner?s caretaker was on a
ladder trying to get the AC unit in our bedroom to work. We further found that
the broadband was not working and the DirecTV in our bedroom could only receive
a few channels when the one in the living room worked normally. After
unsuccessfully trying to make progress, Kathleen decided to go to bed after the
long red-eye flight and I headed back to the station to make some QSO's to test
out the radios and amps.
Upon arriving at the shack, I found that the 40 meter yagi now had a high SWR,
which it did not have a couple of hours earlier. I made some Q?s on 80 and 160
and took a look at the 40. I had been having problems last year when the
antenna was wet that I could make go away with the application of power. I
took down the driven element in October, made some changes, and the problem was
not present for either weekend of the CQWW. Just for the sake of experiment, I
applied power this time and the SWR again would decline to normal. Over a span
of minutes, it would again start to creep back up. It was dark so any work
would have to wait until the morning.
I decided to take a look at the Force12 shortened dipole as my alternate
antenna. It is installed at about 60 feet but I have not used it in years.
W2GD helped me with a guy wire project last summer and he spent hours on the
tower trying to get a decent match on this antenna. Just out of curiosity, I
applied power to this antenna and the SWR also changed, which explains the
confounding results John and I struggled with last summer using the antenna
analyzer. Somewhat remarkably, the SWR bandwidth was roughly 7.1 to 7.25 Mhz,
nearly perfect for an ARRL SSB contest. Unfortunately, it too would degrade as
it sat idle and I headed back to the house with lots of concern. I never sleep
the night I arrive at the station and now I had a good reason.
I was up a sunrise to start the work. Kathleen stayed behind for a while to
call the Internet provider and let in the AC repair people. I could not take
down the 40 meter driven element alone so I did the other antenna setup
project, the 160 meter inverted L. Actually, the vertical itself is already
strung between two towers and I just needed to put up the raised radials.
While this antenna has worked great, the radials have always been ad hoc and
never measured electrically. I brought down my new AIM470 to sweep the radial
pairs for resonance. It turns out they were too long and, interestingly, they
were now within a foot of what the original modeling suggested before I
lengthened them some time back.
This project, even alone, only took about 90 minutes but Kathleen was not done
yet so I tuned the bands and made a few QSO's. The highlight was 10 meters
where I had a huge pileup of US and EU stations. I was now getting very
excited about the contest but, with the potential of a big score, I knew I had
to get the 40 meter beam fixed. While I was working, Kathleen got the Internet
turned back on and the repairmen replaced the AC unit. I went back to the house
and we both went to the ministry office to get my local license renewed. The
recording process at the ministry is a bit archaic, but they are very
professional and I renewed for three more years. I now have been issued 8P5A
rather than having 8P9JG and requesting permission for 8P5A before every
contest.
It was now mid afternoon on Wednesday and we commenced taking down the driven
element of the 40 meter beam. It comes apart in two halves with the
traditional Hy-Gain clamshell bracket in the middle. This antenna utilizes
aluminum linear loading wires along the boom and has a design flaw that causes
the wires to fatigue and break where they connect to the element. Many years
ago I attempted to add some fault tolerance to the design by clamping a
separate wire to the linear loading wire that would make a second connection to
the element. Should the linear loading wire break near the element, the
parallel wire would still maintain the connection.
When we took down the elements, I used an ohmmeter to measure the continuity of
the linear loading wires. One element was normal but the other one measured
around 2.1 ohms. I eventually localized the problem to the element connection
and we proceeded to cut away the liquid electrical tape that protected the
joint. As it turns out, the loading wire was broken and the additional wire
was providing the connection. However, the lug on the end of the additional
wire was black and corroded. We cleaned the connections, replaced the broken
wire, and reinstalled the driven elements. The SWR was now as expected. I
made a number of contacts with full power and, satisfied with the results, we
went to dinner. After dinner, I returned to the shack to find that the 40
meter beam once again had a high SWR and, once again, repair would have to wait
until morning.
We arrived shortly after sunrise on Thursday to take down the driven element
halves again. The elements still measured fine with the ohmmeter. The plan
was to open up all of the loading wire to element connections. Each of the
joints had a fair amount of aluminum oxide buildup but all the loading wires
looked intact except for one that was about to crack so I eventually replaced
that section. In reassembling the connections, I decided to connect the
separate wires first and then add the loading wire. With just the separate
wires connected, there was no conductivity around the linear loading path. It
turns out that another linear loading wire had broken before the redundant wire
connection. We replaced the broken wire and put the elements back up and the
antenna once again looked fine.
I spent the next couple of hours painting the tall tower and we went out for
dinner. Upon returning to the station, I was shocked to find that the 40 meter
beam SWR had gone bad yet again. A pattern was starting to emerge, the antenna
looked fine during the day, but would fail after the sun went down. In any
event, it was now the night before the contest, and I had not yet fixed the 40,
although the SWR would still return to normal if I applied full power. My only
thought was to run guys for a while with the hope that the high power would
either fix it permanently or break it permanently. Should it break, at least I
would be able to chase a persistent problem. Unfortunately, nothing changed.
I decided to head back to the house early and contemplate what to do next. As
I saw it, I could just leave it and hope that I could keep it working by
applying power, or I could take it down again and attempt another fix. I had
never done tower work on the day of the contest, but I felt that I needed to
try to find root cause. We decided that the plan would be to get up at 5:30 AM
so I would be on the tower by sunrise to take the element halves down yet again.
We would try a short list of items and, if that did not work, we would put the
antenna back up. In addition, we would make a 40 meter inverted V to hang from
the tower in case both intermittent 40 meter antennas failed.
As was the plan, I started climbing the tower at sunrise. At the top, I
disconnected the wires to the DXEngineering balun and measured the SWR of the
antenna alone with my Autek analyzer. It was clearly bad and it ruled out the
feedline. I also tried shaking the antenna elements and beta tubes with the
analyzer connected to detect any rapid SWR changes, but none were found. I
that point I just lowered the element halves one last time. On the ground we
opened up all the split bolt connections that joined the spare wire to the
loading wires. There was a fair amount of corrosion but everything looked
intact. I had a time limit for this exercise which expired and just put the
antenna back together. Once again, upon reassembly, the SWR was fine. We then
made a 40 meter inverted V out of spare parts and hung it from about 55 feet.
We managed to get a decent match after just one adjustment.
It was now 10 AM and I was just going to have to use the antennas as they were.
We went back to the house and I took a nap and Kathleen went food shopping. I
had little success sleeping as the antenna problems had me worried. Around 2PM
we headed back to the station to do a final checkout and finish the last minor
setup items, marking the amps, loading the SCP, etc. This took longer than
expected and I returned to the house around 4PM to try to actually get some
sleep, but once again it was a struggle. We had dinner at 6:30 and returned to
the station at 7:15. Despite the sun only being down for an hour, the 40 meter
beam was already exhibiting the high SWR. I would have to depend on being able
to fix it by transmitting into it. With the days of hard work, the lack of
sleep, and the concern over the antennas, I could not remember being more
tired, or in a worse frame of mind to start a contest than I was at this time.
I had brought with me my rate sheet from 2007 and 2004. The major difference
between the contests was 10 meters where I had made 250 and 2000 Q's
respectively. Over all, I had made 8075 and 8880 in those years and would be
my comparisons. My plan was to start on 20 and go for as long as I could get
answers and then QSY to 40. As I was warming up before the contest started, I
could feel the band degrading right up to the start of the contest and I knew I
was in trouble.
The band was marginal and I only managed 50Q's in the first 14 minutes. I
decided to move to 40 but it was brutal trying to find a frequency and then
blow a hole in the QRM. I did not make my next QSO for five minutes. After
moving again, I finally started to get some answers. I finished the first hour
with 164, probably the worst first hour ever operating from this station, maybe
on either mode. I was already about 130 behind the lesser of the two rate
sheets.
I kept plugging away at the low bands the best I could, but I could only close
the gap by about 30 Q's by daybreak (10Z). I found it hard to get any solid
rate going on 15 and 20 until about 16Z and I was now substantially behind
2007. I really had no explanation why I could not maintain the 2007 rate on
the high bands and I eventually fell over 400 Q?s behind the pace. It was a
very frustrating afternoon.
I had been listening to 10 all day hoping for an opening. I had heard W5PR
calling CQ once, but made the mistake of not calling him. I heard him calling
CQ again about an hour later and gave a call. I tried a CQ on the band and
managed about 15 more Q?s in the southern US. After going to 20, I heard
another W on 10 so I tried another CQ with the beam pointing due west along the
equator. The band broke wide open and I worked 300 guys in 45 minutes until the
sun went down. It was an exhilarating, but short, run that was clearly the
highlight of what had been a difficult weekend.
Somewhat rejuvenated, I committed to grinding it out through the night hours.
Once again, 20 closed not long after 0Z and it was time for the low bands. 160
was very noisy the second night but 40 and 80 were OK. Over the course of the
evening I was able to get the QSO differential to 2007 to less than 300 Q's. I
took a single 15 minute break around 230AM local. Before the 15 minute nap I
was struggling to stay awake. After I woke up, I felt like a new person and
had QSO's in the log within a minute. I was able to make up ground to 2007
during the slow night time hours
The daylight hours were as expected and I was maintaining pace with the 2007,
but was still about 150 behind. At 1830, more than an hour before the Saturday
10 meter opening, I called CQ on 10 and the band once again broke open, this
time with a direct path beam heading. I once again worked about 300 stations
in less than an hour. At times I was running as fast as I could and, after
operating for over 40 hours, I had my highest burst rates of the contest.
Once again reinvigorated and I set my sights on 8000 Q?s, about 75 less than
2007, but with more mults. I was making good progress but I could feel 20
meters fade in the 23Z hour. I also had made an earlier sked with K1VSJ in
Rhode Island for 2355Z. I did indeed pass 8000 with a few minutes to spare. I
quickly QSY'd and K1VSJ was already there and I was back on 20 in about 20
seconds. I just pushed as hard as I could for the final minutes and eventually
passed my 2007 score after a miserable start and a difficult first 20 hours.
While I mostly felt OK all weekend, I could not wait for this to end and could
not wait to get home to go to bed. I had been saying that 48 hours is getting
easier, but I really put it to the test this weekend. The contest had a poor
start but was generally fun, with the highlight being the two 10 meter hours I
got.
In the end, the 40 meter antennas worked OK all weekend. When the SWR crept
up, a few seconds of full power carrier made them operational. I need to
regroup on a repair plan and I am open to suggestions. Since it is fine during
the day and changes at night, my only thoughts are thermal expansion/contraction
or moisture. In either case, the possible impact of nightfall is very small
since it only takes an hour or two to make a difference.
I do not know if I did prevail in this contest but, after expecting an easy
week and getting the opposite, it felt good in the end. When the contest was
over, I felt the reward of perseverance.
Thanks to everybody for the Q's and thanks to Kathleen who worked very hard and
kept me (reasonably) sane all week.
QSL via NN1N or LOTW.
73, Tom
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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