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Re: Topband: topband report from 4V1JB

To: topband@contesting.com
Subject: Re: Topband: topband report from 4V1JB
From: Jim Brown <jim@audiosystemsgroup.com>
Reply-to: jim@audiosystemsgroup.com
Date: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 00:36:52 -0800
List-post: <topband@contesting.com">mailto:topband@contesting.com>
I can help with RX noise issues.

73, Jim K9YC

On Fri,12/5/2014 2:01 PM, DALE LONG wrote:
Our plans for a 160m operation and CQWWCW entry were delayed due to supply 
issues and construction woes. THINGS ARE NOT EASY IN HAITI !!!  We are very 
fortunate that we had any place to operate.  We had only very low dipoles on 
the higher bands at the hotel/guesthouse.

Thanks to the great kindness of Jean-Robert HH2JR (who is also famous for his 
efforts in the Haitian earthquake) we were offered the opportunity to use his 
nice station for the contest, and operate with the club callsign of 4V1FR.  The 
last two days we worked on erecting the 160m antenna.

We need to be thankful for three things, the kindness of HH2JR, the efforts to 
put up the antenna (including tower climbing and roof-climbing by an un-named 
old guy) and the excellent filtering ability of the Elecraft K3.  We did not 
have time or space for a listening antenna, although with more time I would 
have tried.

In the end we worked 180 stations on topband and had 3100 QSOs in the contest, 
which is not bad for a contest operation with only two ops.  We aso had three 
lengthy power outages during which we got good exercise trying to start the 
generator. You probably already know that we were there on the top of every 
hour.  We made a big effort on 160m because of the need.

The antenna was an inverted Vee with one side folded back to the tower about 15 
feet from the ground.  The wire almost reached back to the tower.  The other 
side went over a couple roofs and tied off in a neighboring property.  It was 
an accomplishment to get this antenna erected and our host HH2JR was delighted 
to have a 160m antenna.

The bad news is that we worked no EU stations, not a single one.  We had 20 
over 9 noise constantly...We did not have static crashes, just constant noise.  
One leg of the antenna was very close to a WIFI antenna.  Not sure if that was 
the only culprit.

I would like to know how we were being heard in EU...I have no reports.  Our 
antenna described above and we used an Acom 1011 amplifier with about 750w 
output.  Our best contact was with CN2AA.  All other contacts were in the 
Caribbean area and North America.

My goal in the future is to organize a dxpedition for topband operation only.  
We are looking for interested operators who love 160m.  We know that contest 
weekends are not the best for DXing.  We need a dedicated team of topband guys, 
not one guy without an RX antenna.  But again, we need to thank HH2JR.  Without 
his kind offer there would have been zero contacts on 160m last weekend.

Thanks for all who called and wish that more of you could have been in the log. 
 Please let me know if you would be interested in doing a 160m dxpedtion from 
Haiti. And please let me know how was our signal in EU compared to other 
stations.

Thanks & 73

Dale - N3BNA
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