[3830] ARRL160 K8AL SO HP

[aday at acm.org]

                     ARRL 160-Meter Contest
                    
Call: K8AL
Operator(s): K8AL
Station: K8AL

Class: SO HP
QTH: Guernsey County, OH
Operating Time (hrs): 18
 

Summary:
          QSOs  Sections  Countries
Total:     701     75       10      =  122,060

Club/Team: North Coast Contesters

Comments:

Rig:  FT-1000 and AL-82
Antennas:  Deformed dipole at 60', broadside east/west; 1/4 wave sloper at 75', 
slanting north downhill.

This was my first half-serious venture into 160m contesting.  Because of other 
commitments, I did most of Friday night and about half of Saturday night.  This 
is definitely a different game!  It became painfully evident that serious 
competition requires more antenna than I have time to build right now.  The 
behavior of my two primitive antennas is rather interesting:  The sloper has a 
significant vertical component and works better into Europe than the dipole (no 
surprise), and better to the west coast in the later hours of the night.  
However, it is greatly inferior to the dipole (off the end!) for Caribbean and 
South America (I know, at 60' directionality is not to be expected).  
Apparently, the sloper has front-to-back favoring north, even though modeling 
it over flat terrain does not show this at all.  When VK6HD appeared, I tried 
several times with the sloper, since it was doing much better to the west 
coast.  Failing in this, I switched to the dipole, and his signal came up by at 
least an s unit; two calls and I had him, through a sizeable pileup.  I suspect 
this was actually a southward path along the gray line (1200z).  Strange stuff!


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