CQ Worldwide DX Contest, RTTY
Call: AC0C
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: Kansas
Equipment: Yaesu FT-2000 with NS roofing filter
Alpha 76pa
19-element stealth antenna array
N1MM logger
Summary:
Band QSOs Pts State/Prov DX Zones
-----------------------------------------
80: 11 13 2 4 9
40: 503 795 51 22 51
20: 348 614 46 18 37
15: 118 253 37 17 10
10: 9 26 5 5 0
-----------------------------------------
Total: 989 1701 141 66 107 Total Score = 534,114
Club: Kansas City DX Club
Comments:
Contest conditions were good on Friday/Saturday generally except for some
electrical noise from rain on Friday night which limited 80m operation.
Sunday's propagation was not very good by comparison although 15m had a very
good opening Sunday afternoon.
Lot of stronger signals on the band this contest vs. what I remembered from the
RTTY WPX. Ran the FT-2000 with the NS 3 khz roofing filter mod for the entire
contest session. Encountered zero issues of interference that the rig could
not handle even working in some pretty tight spaces against some top name
multi-multi guys. What a difference that made...
The real unknown this year's run was to test the new interior antenna which
had not seen actual contest activity and was being adjusted up to the day
before the contest started. It's a multi-band 160-6m arrangement with 19
elements in total - providing switch-reversible mono-band beam service on 40m
and up.
Despite the system's complexity, the only failure encountered was a broken
bungee on the 20m DE giving rise to the single venture into the attic during
the contest.
The standout surprise of the array was great performance of the 40m beam. I
ran pointed east for most of the contest. The DX total was very satisfactory
with 51 countries in the log on 40m alone. About 50% of the op time was spent
on 40m as a result. That's a real big satisfying improvement because the one
the primary goals of the new antenna array was to give a reasonable contest
capability on 40m.
Very nice opening on 15m. No attempts were made this last week to further trim
the antenna beyond that of the initial VNA-based setup some months past - and
the antenna was totally untried even for casual work. A broken coil at a relay
was fixed earlier this week but the SWR swing from direction to direction was
huge so I had no idea of what the performance would be.
Fortunately the 15m band cooperated, and the antenna behaved well enough to get
37 countries into the log. In retrospect I wish I had spent more time on this
beam given what turned out to be a very nice band opening.
20m was generally good and the antenna performance there felt about like the
old 3-element tri-band trapped arrangement.
And gone from the new design are the old coax-based traps which just never
could be built strong enough to withstand the variations in temp and RTTY
contest abuse with power.
The SB200 Sleeper was not run as there was just no time to get the band-switch
and needed tank circuit redux done. Instead, an old Alpha 76pa was pressed
into service and performed perfectly. Minimal work was done on the 76pa to get
it into contest shape although itâ?Ts sporting a new faceplate and external
black paint - the new paint was cured by the circulated transformer heat and
added external muffin fan - handy!
Thanks to everyone who replied my calls.
73/jeff/ac0c
www.ac0c.com
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at:
http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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