Some of the high points of the contest:
8P6SH moving me to 10 meters and actually being able to hear him off
the back of the beam.
Working NH6XM on two bands in my last 5 minutes of the contest.
No thunder and lightening!
Other than lousy propagation, my only low point:
As bad as the propagation was, as tough as it was to decode all those
fluttery signals, the worst point in the contest came around 01:00 UTC
(9 PM) when I tried my 80 meter antenna and found the SWR was through
the roof. I had just repaired my 80 meter dipole two weeks earlier.
What could have gone wrong? I yelled for my wife to find me a flash
light and a pair of shoes.
Of course the flashlight did little good. You can't see much of a dipole
at 80 feet during the day much less in complete darkness with a tiny
flashlight. I lowered the dipole and checked the connections. There was
no problem there, coax properly attached, both legs still connected. I
raised it back up and somehow managed to get one of the legs wrapped
around a guy wire. (At least that is what I think happened. It was the
only explanation I could come up with as to why it would not go up the
final 10 feet.) I checked the SWR at the base of tower. (Why didn't I
do that first?) It dipped at about 1.7:1. Not what I remembered it to
be 2 weeks ago but certainly an antenna. The problem must be in the 150
feet of coax between the radio and the base of the tower. I decided to
swap to the coax feeding the TH6. This worked and I was finally on the
air on 80 meters. Luckily the whole process took only about 25 minutes.
Here is my raw score:
Band QSOs Mult
---- ---- ----
80m 18 14
40m 119 42
20m 153 44
15m 97 40
10m 4 2
----- -----
Totals: 391 x 142 = 55,552
My equipment:
Lots of antennas, towers, TNCs, coax, radios, computer, and stuff
all driven by the WriteLog software. The new (new to me) Icom 756
performed well and I successfully ran my first contest using the
soundcard TNC. I am spoiled by true o'scope tuning but the sound
card TNC did a good job even in the terrible conditions. The things
I liked about the 756 include the spectrum scope (makes it real easy
to check the activity on the band and, search and pounce) and the
noise reduction capability.
Thanks:
I appreciate all that those dogs that got off the porch and tolerated
the conditions. Thanks for the QSOs! I especially thank those that had
their patience tested by having to repeat exchanges many times due to
the flutter.
73, Bruce WT4I "Thunder Dog"
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