[3830] ARRLDX CW M6T SOAB HP

[g4piq at btinternet.com]

                     ARRL DX Contest - CW
                    
Call: M6T
Operator(s): G4PIQ
Station: G4MRS

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: 
Operating Time (hrs): 38

Summary:
 Band     QSOs  Mults
----------------------
  160:      4      4
   80:    212     37
   40:    583     52
   20:    725     53
   15:    594     56
   10:    751     55
----------------------
Total:   2869    257  =  2,211,999

Comments:

2 x FT1000MP + PAs. 

160m     : Inv V @ 23m
80m      : Delta Loop @ 23m
40m      : 402CD @ 24m
20/15/10 : KT34XA @ 25m + TH5 @ 24m

Not a marvelous performance, so excuse list follows.......

A contest with lots of off time, but not much of it used for sleeping
(unfortunately)! Life in general had been far too hectic to allow any time to
prepare for this contest, equipment or operator wise. Used the club station at
my work which is fine for the core of the station, but always needs some work
doing here and there and extras adding / setting up. Started setting up Friday
lunchtime.......

The site is a telecoms development centre with about 4000 people and can be
noisy, and, in particular, 160m has been almost useless for several years. This
time I tried putting a beverage out a long way from the shack (300m away) in
the hope that I'd be able to hear better since from the way t behaved on
various antennas, I was convinced that the source was really close by. In
reality after I'd tramped around the place in rain and cold, I connected the
antenna and the noise floor was 15dB louder on the beverage than on the Tx
antenna. All I can say is at least I now know where specifcally the noise comes
from! I had meant to go looking for the noise with a portable Rx, but just
hadnt't found the time - lesson learnt.....

Spent the afternoon and evening doing the antenna work, fixing 160m dipole, 80m
loop, chasing a non-existant intermittent fault on the KT34XA, winding up
towers, setting up station for SO2R, building extra keying interface etc......
Was 1.5 hours late in the end which was not a good start. Found some really odd
huge interaction in station between 40 and 80 which made running with one radio
on each band very hard - harmonics are obvious, but this worked the other way
too - Tx on 7020 and there is a huge signal on 3510 with enormous 50 / 100 Hz
sidebands all the way up the band. 

160 was very hard. Heard lots of people working stations and heard a few on
right on my noise floor as they called people the first night, but couldn't
hear anyone CQing till dawn when W3LPL was a fair signal even with a 15dB
excess noise floor on the Tx antenna. Tried calling CQ a bit, but no takers. 80
was also hardish going, but not too bad considering the simple antenna I guess.
40 seemed to run along OK.

After the stream of callers on 40 declined to a trickle took some off time and
moved beverage 600m the other way, although there was no space for a proper
antenna in the right drection there - only a 200ft thing, fixed a connecter on
the KT34XA and got the RF out of the second radio keying interface. This all
took me until about 1200 when I could have gone on the bands again, but felt
that, considering how big a sleep debt I know I have, a little rest would be
good. Planned for 90 minutes, but woke up cold after an hour. Got up and got
on. 

High bands seemed in fair shape - was able to run 2nd radio OK when run freq
was fairly clear. Have a problem with the KT34XA where many signals, especially
on 10 have a S/N I would say 5dB worse on the XA than on the TH5. Needs
tracking down - not clear if it is a gain problem or that the KT34XA is closer
to an on-site noise source. Noise floor is high on 10m here from computers (S7
on FT1000MP with front-end in Tuned mode in SSB B/W) .

New beverage had been rather thrown together and something had distured it
during the day in the trees, so had to fix that before starting the overnight
session. This was really more of the same after the evening previous. Caught
NR4M and WW2Y on 160 at dawn and new short beverage was only way to hear them,
but still felt deaf. W3LPL was again head and shoulders above the rest (so they
were the only ones I could hear.... OK!) Again, only NR4M repled to a CQ (at
least they were the only station I heard - apologies if I was doing a good
aligator impression)

Slept that day from 0900-1200 (relief!), and did another repeat on the high
bands. Ended up with a few odd mults missing here and there (VE1 on 15....!),
and no sign of VO2, VY0,1,2, VE8 and VE9 on any bands. Thanks to those people
who agreed to move for me.

Ran through the low bands at the end and didn't allow enough time to work the
Sunday evening pool of new blood on 80 at the end, but that's life. Also caught
VE1ZZ towards the end on 160.

So - good fun - thanks to everyone for the points and the fun, and maybe see
you for the SSB leg - undecided, and probably won't have time to make many
station improvements, but feeling fired up.

As usual, comments on how the signal stacked up would be of great value.

73,

Andy, G4PIQ
g4piq at btinternet.com



Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
M6T         2869  257 2,211,999SOAB HP     

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