Hello all:
Thanks for all the suggestions about the tribander. I tried all weekend
to "rock" it off the south stop without any luck. Ended up Sunday
morning hooking the 80 meter inverted vee up through the MFJ antenna
tuner so it would resonate on 20 M and used that for the rest of the
contest on 20. Used the 40 meter dipole on 15 for most of the QSOs.
Didn't have an alternate antenna for 10. My score was way down from
last year. I think conditions were maybe not quite as good as last
year. 80M was not nearly as good. It was noisy and the QSOs were way
down, although I did work some west coast.
Last year: 1468 x 80 = 234,880.
This year: 901 x 80 = 144,160.
The last mult was VE2AWR. All others were pretty easily worked. VY1JA
called me on 40 SSB for that mult. Then I worked VY1MB and a VE8 later
on the high bands.
With about 1 1/2 hours to go, I was very discouraged and thought I'd
just barely make 800 QSOs if I worked very hard. I had had very little
luck on 40 SSB and was able to run on in the wee hours of the morning
after the foreign broadcast stations went off. Then, much to my
surprise, I found a quiet spot at 7248 and ran about 100 QSOs there for
the rest of the contest. It was still a very hard contest and not much
fun.
Worked N4LR, W4ATL, WW4LL, KU8E, K4NO. Heard N2XD, W4NTI. I probably
left some out. Heard K4SB being worked.
Here is the result for this year: 24 hours. FT1000MP, Alpha 78,
TH6DXX, dipole, inverted vee.
160 0 Last year
80 113 179
40 230 97
20 383 976
15 112 172
10 63 44
1468
901 x 80 = 144,160
Hope everyone has a good week and gets ready for the "big one" next
weekend.
73,
John, K4BAI.
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