ARRL 160-Meter Contest
Call: K0TV
Operator(s): K0TV
Station: K0TV
Class: M/S HP
QTH: FN42hr
Operating Time (hrs): 10
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 618 Sections = 61 Countries = 16 Total Score = 100,485
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
The original plan was to get an Inverted L up to suppliment the Off Center Fed
Dipole, which was a long reliable antenna here. I got the leader line up for
the Inverted L up on Friday during the day and the plan was to sleep a few
hours in the afternoon before starting the contest. I woke up at 2130 and was
informed by my wife of a bunch of tasks that had to be completed before the
contest. When those were completed, I went to the shack and turned on the
amplifier. A quick check of the dipole showed a 13:1 VSWR (!).
I was hoping for a bad switch or internal shack problem that could be easily
corrected but that was not to be. I went out and put the analyzer on the coax
coming down from the balun and found the high SWR there too. Going into fault
mode on the analyzer showed the fault up at the balun. Unfortunately this
antenna can't be taken down in the dark so, without a transmit antenna, I
decided to wait until the second night to operate.
The Inverted L went up somewhat smoothly on Saturday and I was able to get on
the air starting late Saturday afternoon. I really ran out of steam at about
0730 so I decided to get some sleep and get up in a few hours. Sleeping through
the alarm put the ribbons on the weekend.
Let's see if we can avoid a repeat of this weekend for the CQWW 160 weekend in
January. The time I spent on the air was lots of fun. It was a blast being
fresh meat on Saturday evening.
Thanks to everyone who called and, in the words of The Terminator, "I'll
be back."
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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