IARU HF World Championship
Call: K1LT
Operator(s): K1LT K8LT WD8AMX
Station: K1LT
Class: M/S QRP
QTH: WRTC Site 15A
Operating Time (hrs): 15
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Zones HQ Mults
-------------------------------------
160: 0 0 0 0
80: 56 33 1 3
40: 63 7 5 7
20: 33 10 5 4
15: 25 6 6 4
10: 6 1 1 0
-------------------------------------
Total: 183 57 18 18 Total Score = 10,368
Club: Mad River Radio Club
Comments:
I wanted to be part of the 2014 World Radiosport Team Championship so
I volunteered to be a site team member at Myles Standish State Forest
which is very near to where my parents live. A site team member
provides the competitors life support (fetches food and water) and
maintains the electricity supplied by the Honda generator.
I also wanted to try to work all of the competitors on all band-mode
combinations. At the time I volunteered it sounded like I would be
the second site team member and that I would have an opportunity to
sneak away and operate from some other location from time to time. I
brought my K3, P3, laptop, and a open wire fed 80 meter dipole and
rigged up a battery connection to the car so that I could use it as a
power source. I also brought my friend Bill, WD8AMX who previously
attended numerous W8LT contest operations (especially Field-Day style
ARRL 160 meter operations) who recently retired. He had never been to
New England before and expressed an interest in trying new
experiences. We drove to New England via the I80 northern route in
14.5 hours total (my time from door to door) with only 1 stop in
Western Pennsylvania. I pointed out K3LR's station along I80 just
east of the OH/PA border. Bill was impressed by the numerous
antennas.
Bill performed the amazing feat of coordinating the annotated aerial
photo of the state forest with the GPS updated map on his iPhone to
navigate us to several sites in the forest while we established
communications with Dennis, N1IMW, who is the Area Coordinator for the
SE Standish group of sites. When we arrived at Site A Dennis said
that one volunteer had to drop out at the last minute and that we
would be on our own for the duration while he headed up the site with
the lost team member. That news sounded like I would not have the
opportunity to work the competitors.
We followed the prescribed routine and made the site ready for the
competitors. I put my KX3 on the 3 WRTC2014 supplied antennas and
found very nice SWRs on all 5 CW bands. We listened to OH4MDY in
Finland running stations on 15 meters, including an Indonesian station
that we could actually hear off the side of the beam.
Driver Pamela, K6NDV, delivered one of the Croatian teams consisting
of competitors Chris, 9A5K and Richard, 9A1TT and their referee Kirk,
K4RO, Friday afternoon. They promptly set up their equipment and made
many QSOs on 20, 15, and 10 meters. Then they offered to take us to
lunch if we could lead the way to a restaurant. I ran over to the
adjacent site and recruited Bill, K1UFO, to monitor our site while we
were away and recommend a location for a restaurant. He described a
location near the Home Depot on Route 3. Bill, WD8AMX has able to
navigate us back across the wandering roads of Myles Standish State
Forest while Pamela with Richard, Chris, and Kirk followed.
While at lunch we mentioned to Chris, Richard, and Kirk that I wanted
to try to work the competitors and that the plan was to "go a mile
down the road" and operate. We also promised not to sell all of their
equipment on eBay while we secured the site that evening.
Bill wrote up the directions to return to the site for Kirk. Kirk and
company returned to the site to conclude their setup and to relieve
K1UFO Bill while WD8AMX Bill and I went to the grocery store for some
granola bars, fruit, chips, and water for the competitors.
When Bill and I returned to the site, Chris and Richard were done but
Kirk was having trouble getting the automatic score reporting devices
to communicate because of marginal coverage by the cell network
utilized by the score reporting devices. We tried several times to
find a better position for the cell modem, even after Kirk and company
returned to their hotel for the evening. Bill and I tried until dark
to find a good spot, even taping the cardboard antenna storage tubes
together as makeshift tower to elevate the modem. Later WA1Z, the
score reporting guru, said that the backup manual system would be
sufficient and we stopped messing with the score reporting stuff.
Bill brought a nice new two-man tent but we elected to sleep in the
WRTC tent Friday night. I fired up the tethered call phone and laptop
arrangement to access Internet email and sent to Gary, K8LT the
instructions Bill wrote for navigating the park to reach our site.
Then we slept to arise at 0630 (1030Z) to remove our stuff from the
tent before the operating team returned.
Around 0645 (1045Z) Pamela delivered the operating team. She also
mentioned that she had been replaced by a person from Site M who was
going to be on location Sunday morning and had capacity to transport
the operating team back to their hotel.
At 0745 (1145Z) Kirk opened the envelope to reveal the callsign W1C.
At 0755 (1155Z) Chris and Richard took their seats in front of their
radios. They were not allowed to listen or transmit prior to the
start of the event.
At 0800 (1200Z) Chris and Richard started operating and Kirk started
listening intently to both radios, one in each ear.
Bill and I watched for a few minutes. I was not able to make out any
score information because my visual acuity could not resolve
characters on the monitors from outside the tent. The lack of
progress info left me feeling very left out of the fun.
So while Bill continued to study the operating habits of professional
contesters, I assembled a crude dipole made of meter leads and Friday
night's 8-foot cardboard tube tower. Amazingly, the tuner in the K3
could tune the 6 foot long vertical dipole on 15 meters. I worked W1P
and K1S using 500 milliwatts. K1S turned out to be W2SC and N2NL at
site E about 2000 feet away. My third contact was W1C on 20 meters
using 100 milliwatts, which is as low power as the K3 will go. That
QSO brought a satisfying burst of laughter from the tent.
After another 17 QSOs with several 1x1s (111s?) on various bands, an
opportunity occurred to ask the competitors whether or not there was
any interference and they said no. At that point I rolled the car
back about 100 feet, nominally to block the access road so that
visitors would not drive up to the tent. I rolled out the open wire
on the tall grass and the dipole wires on low branches about 6 feet
off the ground. I connected the open wire to the balun I made last
week and enabled the tuner in the K3.
I made a few more contacts at 0.1 watts and gradually increased the
power while monitoring the tent for signs of distress from
interference. (It was also possible to keep some frequency separation
from W1C courtesy of the phase noise surrounding their signals. Both
operators were using IC756PRO III radios.) After I worked 6V7S on 15,
I figured that N8XX's QRP to an underground antenna mode must be
workable.
Later in the day European signals got stronger and I made a few
European QSOs in amongst the 1x1s. I also worked loud US and Canadian
stations and called people I knew, although not everyone could hear
me.
I am pretty sure that all of the 1x1 calls worked on 20, 15, and 10
were all located in Myles Standish State Forest. I heard other
stations working the other 1x1s but I could not hear them because they
were too close.
Shortly thereafter a large black Suburban drove up and I thought the
Feds were on our case. But instead, Tim Duffy, K3LR emerged. He
asked about the strange looking dipole and open wire line and I told
him my plan. Then he did a quick peek at the tent. I mentioned to
Bill that here is the man that owns all those towers along I80. About
this time the videographer arrived with his entourage (his sound man).
Since Bill and I have both done numerous Field Days with numerous
cranky generators, we had the habit of checking the fuel supply
frequently. Therefore with hosting visitors, checking the generator,
and tying down things trying to blow away in the increasing breeze,
Bill and I were kept reasonably busy.
In the early afternoon, Randy, K5ZD and Andy, N2NT arrived to take a
peak at the operation. I showed Randy the K3 in the car wedged
between the front seats and the "ground mounted" dipole which could
reach Europe and Africa on 5 watts.
About 4 PM K8LT arrived from New Hampshire to see the action and help
out. He recognized the open wire fed dipole from W8LT Field Days of
long ago. After a tour of the operation I put him in front of the
radio and helped him to press buttons and type 1x1s into the log.
This was handy when various nighttime visitors required my attention.
Victor, UA9OC stopped by to see where we were since he was the new
driver to return our teams to the hotel Sunday morning.
When WA1DRQ returned for his final check after dark, we got to
talking about the "big moon" rising. He said to watch out for the
equestrians who ride trails during full moons, one of which passes
through Site A. We never saw any equestrians.
At night, we could work all of the 59 competitors on 40 and 80. By
midnight we had the rotation of 80 and 40 phone and CW down to a
routine. About 3 AM, the competitors finally had reason to emerge
from their tents and change the ends of their 80 meter dipoles for the
other end of the band and rates picked up a bit as new stations
appeared at both ends of 80 meters. (I am extrapolating the actions
of all the competitors from the behavior of our team.)
At 0830Z I made my last contact. I decided that I need to get some
sleep in order to be properly awake for tear down and clean up. I
slept for about an hour and woke up when the sky began to brighten.
At that point the videographer had returned for his last visit.
(I am sparing all of you the "interesting" accounts of dealing with
the "blue room". Look at the numerous WRTC2014 photos for examples
of
the "blue room". Suffice it to say that even bribes did not relieve
us of "blue room" duty.)
Around 1100Z Victor returned to transport his charges back to the hotel.
At 1200Z Kirk, Richard, and Chris staggered out of the tent. Kirk
declared loudly that "now I have two brains!" We helped them pack
their equipment and remove the trash.
By 1430Z we had the tables and accessories taken down, the tent and
blue room packed, and the site generally cleaned up. Bob came by and
collected the "site buyer" stuff (tent, generator, tarps, blue room,
tables, chairs, etc.). We waited until about noon for the beam team,
but they were later than expected, even though we knew we were the
last site to be collected. We departed to dispose of the trash and to
get lunch since we figured no one would attempt to steal 40 feet of
upright Rohn 25, even if it does have a nice tribander on top.
As I type this at my parents house on Cape Cod, we are getting ready
for a quick trip to the Marconi Wireless Museum and then later to go
to the awards ceremony.
Equipment: K3, laptop, 80 meter dipole
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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