I hadn't made my usual post-contest analysis during the past couple of
contests because I was busy and there wasn't much new to say anyway. But
this WPX CW had some interesting features so back to the story-telling mode
it is.
KC1XX and his colleague Andrew had been down Wednesday and Thursday working
on my system. Yes they found what was wrong with the 80-meter KLM beam.
No it isn't fixed because we are awaiting spare parts from KLM. Anyway
they affixed a new starting capacitor to the Tailtwister on my 4-el W6PU
quad so I thought that was fixed. Then Friday morning by complete surprise
the power company's RFI man N3RWF called to inform me that they would
finally be working on my line noise problem that day.
Come the start of the contest I was ready to go. I always start on 20 in
this contest with the beam on Europe because I figure for the first hour on
40 the Europeans are busy working each other and it's hard to break
through. But on 20 I noticed that although my run rate was OK I was being
called mostly by other USA stations off the back of my beam, and only
Southern Europeans and the Mediterranean area of West Asia were calling me,
except for my very first QSO which was G4BUO and Dave was much weaker than
normal. So at 0035 I went to 40 and began running Europeans immediately.
Should have begun there right at the start. The loud auroral backscatter
on W2's and W3's told me that we were having a magnetic disturbance but the
Europeans were coming through all right anyhow.
Murphy didn't wait long to strike. At 0050 the main breaker at the power
service entrance to the house took out one phase and my Titan amplifier
went down. An initial glance at the breaker made it appear that nothing
was amiss so Chief Engineer N6CZG changed to the spare Titan amp and power
supply. Though I was only down until 0106 it seemed a lot longer and it
threw my rhythym off for a while. Murphy stayed around for most of the
weekend and I lost the breaker twice more, while having two additional
brief power cuts, presumably for power company "load shedding" in the hot,
humid weather -- or maybe they were just working on my noise problem -- but
for whatever reason it meant I had to bring the computer -- which is well
protected against such brief cuts -- back up and reprogram my MFJ
Grandmaster keyer with the usual contest messages -- I don't use TR-LOG to
key my computer for me.
40 was not one continuous run of stations and I had to break off at times
to do S&P to keep the rate up. During this time I became well aware that
the local competition -- KE3Q and KT3Y -- were well ahead of me and K3MM
and KT4W were breathing down my neck. But anyway I was enjoying myself so
I continued on my merry way without being too depressed. At 0420 I decided
that the 40 meter rate had dropped too low to be worthwhile so with 315
stations in the log I went to 20, scarfed up a few VK's and South Americans
and called it quits at 0500 with 340 QSOs in the log. Talking to W3ZZ
after the contest I learned that 15 had opened long path to Europe about
the time I went to bed and guess I could have had a ball there with the
8-el Telrex 15-meter monobander now up at 155 feet and playing well.
Lesson #1 for this contest: Now that sunspot numbers are on the way up,
when a disturbance is in progress be sure to check all bands for unusual
openings.
At 0830 I was up and back on 40 meters hoping for the usual JA opening.
But while the band was quiet enough considering the storminess in some
areas of the country, the ionospheric disturbance limited the action to
stations in the Pacific and South America, all of whom I worked in about an
hour of slow S&P. I did get about 5 off-bearing JA's but repeating my
number with the multi-path echo on the signals was no fun so I went to 20
at 0950 which was just opening to Europe -- not able to run any but S&P
worked with most I called. Between 1000-1020 I returned to 40 which opened
direct path to JA so it was now possible to S&P a number of other JA's and
have them get my number the first time off. Of course the idea in paying
such close attention to 40 is the double points you get in this contest for
every QSO. A 30-per-hour rate is worth a 60-per-hour rate on 20. My 40
meter antenna, by the way, is a 3-el Telrex at 94 feet.
In general the bands recovered rather rapidly from the disturbance and I
had a reasonable run of JA's on 20 from 1130 to 1215 using the 6-el Telrex
monobander at 150 feet. After Asia died off I tried running Europeans but
conditions were so-so so I quit at 1215, coming back on at 1430. At 1430
I gave 15 a whirl since when all I had on that band was the 4-el W6PU quad
at 78 feet, I had always suffered on this opening at this time of year by
comparison with the fellows with higher Yagis. Now that I have the 8-el
Telrex at 155 feet I figured I should be able to hold my own on the band
now. After all this is the same antenna that K3RV had used to set several
W4 15 meter records when the antenna was installed at the W4QAW QTH! It
has a proud history!
I was not disappointed and another thing that was immediately noticeable
was the lack of any line noise. Whether from actions by the power company
or the hot humid weather, it was great to be able to copy signals that were
actually in and out of my FT-1000-MP's noise floor. I guess Joe, I5/K2XX,
takes the record for the weakest signal I have been able to copy on the
FT-1000-MP since I have owned it. In general the low noise all during the
weekend made it a pleasure to operate the contest even though I was playing
catch-up the whole time.
Finally at 1618 I decided the 15 meter rate had dropped off enough so that
it paid to take a quick run to 10 to make one S&P run up the band to get
all of the South Americans. Also in the back of my mind was that at this
time of year the band might well open to Europe. I didn't hear any
Europeans but even with the 4-el W6PU dual-driven quad on Europe I could
hear South Americans, so I began to turn that antenna around toward South
America. At 110 degrees it stopped cold -- evidently there is a "dead
spot" on the potentiometer in the Tailtwister at that bearing, and try as I
might I could not get it to move from that position, even with the
next-door neighbor's teen-age boy up on the tower giving the spreader a
nudge! So I worked all the South Americans I could hear at that bearing
and went back to 15. Later on this problem cost me some volume to Europe
that afternoon on 20 when the quad is a killer into Europe compared to the
higher monoband Yagi. Even with the quad at this bearing signals from
Europe were louder on it than on the higher Yagi pointed right at Europe,
and I ran quite a number of Europeans but it would have been much better
had the quad been dead-on to Europe. (I detected a breeze in the wee hours
of the morning Sunday morning and sure enough it was enough to blow the
quad off its "dead spot" and I got it set back on Europe where it remained
for the rest of the contest. I guess I am finally convinced that Norm the
rotor man, W3NRS, is right when he suggests that I should move up to a
bigger rotor on the quad.) I did hear and work one European on 10 by the
way -- EA5BY at 1933 -- and he was nice and loud but guess nobody else over
there knew the band was open.
On the second night I went to 80 early -- at 0023 -- and stayed until 0220,
since the band closes early this time of years with the sun so high in the
Northern hemisphere sky. I used the Yagi on receive and the half-sloper on
transmit, since the Yagi will only take 200 watts or so of power until
replacement insulators are installed on the driven element -- insulators
which keep the inner and outer portions of the driven element electrically
separated so that the loading wire connecting the two portions of the
element will do its job of electrically lengthening the element. After
being up about 12 years, one of the two such insulators in the driven
element has finally begun to break down when higher power is applied. I
worked 80 stations S&P during that time, almost all in Europe. Only one or
two I called couldn't hear me. Two or three times I was called by another
station after making an S&P QSO. I feel the 400+ QSO points thus obtained
were well worth the two hours.
After 40 closed to Europe I found a beautiful opening on 20 which for me
was the highlight of the contest. Pointing the 6-el Telrex 20 meter
monobander at 150 feet directly north into the closest portion of the
sunlit earth which this time of year spreads well to the south of our side
of the North Pole, I was able to run Europeans, Asians, and even the odd
Pacific station at this one heading. The band was extremely quiet and I
felt I could hear everything. Even signals showing S3 on the meter sounded
like S9. Things don't get any better than this! This opening lasted from
0400 to 0600 when it gradually petered out. This is the sort of opening to
look for this time of year now that the solar flux is in the 90's. The way
the current cycle is progressing so slowly, it may turn out to be a
relatively low cycle at its peak relative to recent cycles, but things have
been happening even at this level which normally don't occur until readings
are much higher -- or maybe with Packetcluster all over the world we are
just more aware of existing openings. Still, not using packet during the
contests, I have to rely on my memory of what happened when previous cycles
were at this point, and sometimes it works.
Back on at 0910 one look at the 40 and 80 meter bands showed that the
powerful thunderstorms in the Midwest were making those bands useless so
after a couple of QSO's I went QRT for another hour, returning at 1020 to
find a very decent opening to Japan and East Asia on 20 which gave me a
reasonable rate until just after 1200. At this point I went to 15 which
was already wide open to Europe and a good run continued until 1440 when I
took my final two hours off. During this period 15 was also well open to
Asia, but outside of 9V1YC doing a land-office business, it looks like few
Asians were aware of it. I did work JH5ZJS and YB4JIM also, but that was
it. James was heard still knocking them off on 15 as late as about 1800.
It was nice to have the quad back on Europe for the 20 meter run in the
late afternoon but the short skip combined with the bad QRN from
thunderstorms in New York and New England made 20 sound like 80 does on a
midsummer eve. The skip on 20 was so short that our friendly rivals from
FRC country were pushing the meter well over S9. I had planned to spend
the last hour or so on 40 but the QRN made that band useless. Normally it
pays to taker off times earlier so that one can be on the bands right until
the end, but that may not have been the correct strategy in this particular
contest as things turned out.
My score was off by 1.7 million points compared to last year. While the
first night's disturbance may have been part of that, I also could have
been a little wiser in use of strategy. KE3Q, operating at W3LPL, was
close to my last year's score so the QSOs were there to be had. However,
it was plenty of fun even so, and now I can look forward to even more
bureau QSLs rolling in in the ensuing months.
See you all in the IARU contest!
73, Fred, K3ZO
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