[3830] ARRL160 AA4LR SO LP

[aa4lr at arrl.net]

                     ARRL 160-Meter Contest
                    
Call: AA4LR
Operator(s): AA4LR
Station: AA4LR

Class: SO LP
QTH: GA
Operating Time (hrs): 7.7
 

Summary:
          QSOs  Sections  Countries
Total:     202     39        1      =  16,280

Club/Team: SECC

Comments:

Antennas: 
Temporary Inverted-L with 2 elevated radials
125' doublet at 35'

Equipment:
Kenwood TS-430S running 100 watts, AT-250
Homebrew CMOS CW Keyer -- 22 years old

Comments:

What fun!

I had never operated the ARRL 160m contest before. Gary, K9AY had given me a 
goal of 300 Qs, 35 mults and a score of 21,000 points. I thought the number of 
Qs was a bit optimistic, but thought I would give it a go.

My operating  time was somewhat limited, as I had many holiday obligations 
during the day, so I couldn't afford to operate all night. But I put in at 
least three hours each evening, and 20 minutes around sunrise each night.

I disconnected my R7000 and used the coax run to put up the Inverted-L. As it 
was, this antenna wasn't terribly effective, and I ended up using the doublet 
most of the time, even though it was cut for 80m.

First night ended with 94 Qs and 31 mults. Looks like I was on track to make my 
goal mults, but not Qs. The Inverted-L hadn't been very effective, and I mostly 
use the doublet. The Inverted-L had been sufficient to work my only DX (ZF2AH), 
which is the first 160m DX I'd worked from my home station. 

First night was nearly all S & P. Getting responses was tricky. I decided many 
hams must be using really narrow filters, as I would shift my TX frequency 
around a bit each time someone CQed in my face. That worked, and I had to tune 
away from very few stations.

I tried calling CQ in several spots, but only got one answer in many minutes of 
calling. W4AN had advised me to call CQ, and I was getting ready to tell him it 
just didn't work with low power and crummy antennas.

Imagine my surprise the next day. I had gone into the back yard to put our 
newly-cut Christmas tree into a bucket of watter. Looking up, I saw the 125' 
doublet was half laying on the ground. I had spliced back 10' of wire on each 
end of the doublet from a previous (failed) experiment. One of my splices had 
broken, and the antenna was very low, with a fair amount on the ground.

This meant I had to squeeze a tower climb into a busy Saturday, before the sun 
went down. It was actually a nice day for tower work, and I spent a minute or 
two watching the sunset from 40 feet.

The second night went better, although I couldn't operate quite as long as the 
first. But, after an hour, I started to call CQ in a clear spot just above 1876 
kHz. I stayed there for the nearly 2 hours. The rate wasn't great -- about  
30/hour,  but it was better than I could do S & P, so I kept at it.

I CQed so much, the cooling fan on the TS-430 came on solid. I've never worked 
the rig so hard. My fingers began to hurt from slapping the paddles, but I was 
having too much fun with the run to stop. Eventually, it worked out and I had 
to QRT shortly after.

As for sections, I managed to work all of 3-land,  9-land and 8-land (I thought 
I'd never find a WV). All of 4-land but PR, VI, WCF and SFL, All of 1-land but 
VT and EMA (go figure), all of 2-land but NNY and NLI, and a smattering of 5's 
and 0's. Oh, and the Golden Ears award goes to N6IG, who heard my pipsqueak 
signal all the way in California.

That was fun! Let's do it again next year.


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