Stew Perry Topband Challenge - Pre-Stew
Call: N0FN
Operator(s): N0FN
Station: N0FN
Class: Single Op QRP
QTH: IA
Operating Time (hrs): 1
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 1 Total Score = 1
Club:
Comments:
Saturday afternoon I quixotically decided to put up a 160m elevated ground plane
inverted L in the forest by our new house. In March I had a great time in that
version of the Stew Perry, so I wanted to try again. I found the box with the
wire and the feedpoint from my 80m ground plane I had at my old place. I
thought I had a 1/4 wave piece of wire for 160m in there but it was still too
short so I spliced on another piece but I had no time to measure it. I just
lobbed a water bottle over a tree branch and stretched the radiator off through
the trees. The radials were only 20m long so I put on as much more wire as I
had, but I don't think that I made it up to a resonant quarter wave on either
one of the radials.
Once everyone else went to bed, I went to hook things up. With the coax right
in the back of the radio, I heard tons of stations from 1810 to 1845.
Unfortunately, the SWR was 6.0 on the K2 so I needed to put my little MFJ tuner
in line. But I couldn't find another UHF-BNC adapter! I cobbled together
something terrible with a BNC binding post adapter and alligator clips but the
best the little tuner could get to was 3:1.
I had never tried QRP in a 160m contest, much less with a very compromised
antenna, but I got very used to people CQing in my face. In fact, when K3PA
actually came back to me I was shocked! That one contact kept me trying for a
while longer, but eventually my fortitude was eclipsed by my exhaustion before
anyone else heard me. I was quite surprised at how much I could hear on such a
goofy antenna, but perhaps that is part of the magic of this rural location.
Maybe later in the night people would be willing to dig out my 5W into a dummy
load instead of in prime US evening time.
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