ARRL DX Contest, CW
Call: K4MM
Operator(s): W4IX
Station: K4MM
Class: SO Unlimited HP
QTH: SFL
Operating Time (hrs): 45
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 97 56
80: 205 80
40: 644 104
20: 735 101
15: 524 89
10: 37 18
-------------------
Total: 2242 448 Total Score = 3,013,248
Club: Florida Contest Group
Comments:
FT-950 160/10L AMP SO2R and SO2V operation without the SO2R interface box.
FT-1000MARKV
A4S YAGI @40FT.
INV L 80MTR APEX 40FT
INV L 160MTR APEX 40FT
SLOPER 40MTR @35FT
SHORT BEV APPROX. 300FT
2X COMPUTERS RUNNING N1MM+
My Dad broke his elbow and sprained his wrist in a fall prior to the contest so
I decided to work it from his station. I brought down my radio,head sets and key
and some wire and coax for the short beverage. I spent the first few days
working on the yard and antennas, setting up the short beverage. ( It is truly
amazing how well the short beverage made the bands sound at this noisy South
Florida QTH ). I originally planned on operating at N4WW but had to change the
plan due to my dads fall. I was going to do a low power operation as my dads
small amp died a few weeks prior to the contest but low power contests really
stink from down here so I had a plan. I have this old Clipperton 10-160L amp i
got from my old buddy Mark, W4SVO (RIP), that had a mismatch issue with my
newer radios. It would through the input SWR off and kill the drive power so
there was n't any drive getting to the amp. I decided to take a small MFJ 941
tuner and hook it up between the radio and amp and adjust the swr. Well it
seemed to work well so now I had a small amp to use so I could run in the High
Power category. So we had the FT-950 hooked up to the main computer and
interface and used this as the 2nd radio to work other bands while running on
the main radio (FT1000MarkV) and amp. The FT-1000 has a little more output than
the FT-950 so this is why I used it with the amp. The run station was networked
with the main computer for radio control but did not have any interface for
keying so I basically ran the 45 hours manually keying with my Bencher paddle,
which fell apart halfway through and I had to steal the Jones key from the
other radio. This would have been a totally different contest had I not
installed the beverage. It really helped with the local noise issue Tom has
here at the QTH. I actually used it on all bands from 20-160. I was having so
much fun working 160 on Saturday night I just about vacated my serious run run
run attitude I had going into the weekend. I can't believe I worked 56
countries from Port St Lucie Fl on Top Band in the short amount of time I spent
there...just plain awesome!! Condx were definitely better than expected...I did
not spend much time on 10 meters and all Q's there were barefoot as the Amp did
not have any output on that band and started smelling bad while tuning up. I got
about 350 watts on 15 meters, 400 watts on 20-80 and 600 on 160. The amp seems
to have some bad tubes but overall it hung in there really well for all the
running I did. One highlight of the contest was working VU2 on 40 meters well
before the sun went down on a Sloper!!!! Well back to work some where on the
West Coast....73's and thanks to everyone that made this a great contest
weekend!!!
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