CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW
Call: 4X0W
Operator(s): K1XM
Station: 4Z1UF
Class: SOAB(A) LP
QTH: Israel
Operating Time (hrs): 42.5
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 200 6 45
80: 369 15 64
40: 1221 33 112
20: 512 33 102
15: 571 34 109
10: 973 38 112
------------------------------
Total: 3846 169 549 Total Score = 7,854,552
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
First, I want to thank Ilya, 4Z1UF and his wife Raia.
In a normal year I would be very pleased with this result. It is well above
the record for the country, continent, and zone. However this was not a normal
year and I think I chould have had 500-1000 more QSOs. The stations were there.
Only 19% of my contacts were with the USA. On 80 meters I only had 13 QSOs
with the US!
My big enemy was fatigue. It rained five days during the week before the
contest and I caught a cold. But that wasn't the only problem.
This was the first operation with Ilya's new Force 12 Delta II 6BA antenna for
40-10. And it almost didn't happen. Originally Ilya thought the antenna would
be installed before I got to Israel. But Force 12 delayed shipping.
When the antenna arrived some of the holes were not drilled and some parts were
wrong. For example the 15 meter driven element is not supposed to be split but
it was. And a bunch of hardware was missing.
Force 12 was supposed to ship replacement hardware by UPS or Fedex but instead
they sent the parts by USPS Priority mail. This is a slow way to send things
to Israel. Also the Israel Post Office doesn't deliver packages. Instead they
leave a slip and you have to go to the office during normal business hours.
Ilya built the elements before I arrived. He was able to scrounge enough
hardware to put everything together, although some of it was the wrong length
or was of smaller diameter. The weekend before the contest we installed the
elements on the boom and eventually raised it onto the tower. We finished
after sunset in heavy winds and intermittent rain.
We checked the SWR and found it to be good on most bands. Some had resonance a
bit high. But 40 was resonant several hundred KHz high and the SWR was almost
infinite in the CW band. And the weather prediction was for rain every day for
the next week.
I did some investigation and found out that Force 12 had replaced the 40 meter
loading coils with a new design. The new coils are better but have a bit less
inductance. So the element tips needed to be extended several feet. The
instructions we had were for the old coils. This explained the problem - now
we just needed a day with good weather so we could fix it.
The first day with decent weather was the Friday of the contest. Ilya,
Charlotte, and I adjusted the element tips. When we were done the antenna SWR
was much more reasonable, at least something I could use with the transmatch in
the radio. Ilya raised the mast and we installed the rotator. This was
successful but left me tired with about twelve hours before the start of the
contest.
Meanwhile the hardware showed up a couple days before the contest. Some of the
bolts looked like the right ones but we were unable to figure out where several
of them could go. And it didn't matter because the bag contained bolts and
lockwashers but no nuts!
We didn't have time to finish repairing and installing the receiving loop so I
would have to use the transmitting antennas which are two slopers to listen on
80 and 160.
I took a nap while Ilya wired the antenna into the station. Then he showed me
how to change antennas and gave me a three minute tutorial on the radio. The
FT-5000DX is not a radio that I can learn so quickly. It took me most of the
contest to understand how to turn RIT on and off.
Operating from Israel with these conditions was lots of fun. I didn't push
myself as hard as I might have and I probably spent too much time chasing
multipliers instead of running because it is easier. I also probably missed
the best USA opening on 10 and 15 because I needed to sleep.
I had planned to call CQ on 160 a few times to see if I could raise anyone. I
figured that I'd be picked up by the skimmers. And if this didn't work I would
not spend much time on the band. I mentioned this to Ilya and he told me not to
waste my time. Friday night I could barely work anyone on 160. Saturday night
I found signals were louder. I decided to call CQ and was promptly spotted by
several skimmers. Then some loud Europeans started calling.
A little while later Ilya came by. He asked how it was going and I told him I
was doing the impossible. He said "you are staying awake?" And I
suggested he look at the log. At that point I had around 100 QSOs on 160. He
smiled a big smile and said that the 160 antenna worked well for transmit.
I was surprised which pile-ups I could easily break with 100 watts from zone
20. I'm sure I missed some easy multipliers because of my unfamiliarity with
propagation from that part of the world.
I'll close with again thanking Ilya and Raia for their wonderful hospitality.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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