7th Call Area QSO Party
Call: K6OK
Operator(s): K6OK
Station: K6OK
Class: SOMixed LP
QTH:
Operating Time (hrs): 14
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Dig Qs
----------------------------
160:
80: 18 1
40: 61 37
20: 37 7
15: 22 5
10:
6:
2:
----------------------------
Total: 138 50 0 Mults = 82 Total Score = 42,148
Club: Mother Lode DX & Contest Club
Comments:
I'm in Sacramento, Calif so 7QP is always an interesting exercise in short- and
medium-skip propagation. A fun contest in which 15 meters ignores VOACAP and I
toast a toroid!
40m and 20m were my best bands. No surprise there given the short distances
involved.
VOACAP says 7QP states are too close to me for 15m and predicts a big donut
hole extending out past the Rockies. Contrary to that I made contacts on 15m
with OR, WA, ID, MT, WY, UT and AZ. NV is the only state I did not hear on 15.
N7ZZ was my closest 15m at only 433 miles. Some contacts sounded like
backscatter (light signal with a little echo) but others were loud, clear, and
sounded like short path. On 15m I have a homebrew Moxon 2-el. at only 30 ft,
pointed to my northeast. 4NEC2 shows a primary lobe at 18 deg. elev. and a
secondary lobe at 70 deg.-- maybe the medium to high takeoff angle helped? In
the afternoon the Moxon also acted the way VOACAP predicted it should and
brought in strong INQP and NEQP signals.
Heard no 7QP'ers on 10 meters, only a couple of ZLs and a few 4-landers doing
10-10.
No digital contacts this year. Called CQ on 7080 using RTTY but I had no
takers.
Now I know why they don't use toroids for loading coils. I'm on a small
suburban lot so 80 meters has always been troublesome. No room for a full-size
antenna. Before the contest I rigged up a short inverted L right above the
ridge line of my roof, only 20 ft up. I wound a 1.4-in ferrite toroid for use
as a base loading inductor along with a couple of wires strung along the base
of the house to act as radials. In pre-contest testing I was able to get 2:1
SWR on 3.5 mHz by adjusting the turns on the toroid (and, as a prelude, it got
warm doing so). Worked well enough to make a dozen contacts in all 7QP states
but NV. Then I got the wise idea to try using an MFJ tuner to try to load it up
on 160m. Tuned up fine at 5W. I tried answering somebody's CQ on CW with 100W
and suddenly the rig went into high SWR protection mode. The inv-L no longer
tuned up on either 80m or 160m, so I pulled the plug on the contest an hour
early at 0600 UT. I think I now own one baked toroid. Time to wind an air core
loading coil.
Many thanks to the mobiles and portables for putting rare counties on the air!
The last mobile I worked, N7WA, was at 0508 UT and at the time I thought,
"Wow, it's late and you guys are still out on the road? You must be really
tired." What a great effort...
Small-lot mini-station: TS-590 100 watts, N1MM, wires 20/40, Moxon 15m, short
inv-L 80m. All S&P. Tnx for the QSOs and 73 to all. -- Jim K6OK
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
______________________________________________
3830 mailing list
3830@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/3830
|