[3830] ARRL 160 VE7FO Single Op HP

[jimsmith at shaw.ca]

                    ARRL 160-Meter Contest

Call: VE7FO
Operator(s): VE7FO
Station: VE7FO

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: BC
Operating Time (hrs): 3

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 26  Sections = 10  Countries = 0  Total Score = 520

Club: British Columbia DX Club

Comments:

Just before going to bed Fri Night (well, Sat morning) I thought I'd give a
listen on 160.  Only been on the band twice in my life, once when I tried
loading my 80m dipole on 160 (centre at 40 ft, one end at 20 ft and the other at
16 ft) with the MkV and the other using this setup in the last CQ 160.  Have
listened on 160 during various contests hoping for at least a mult or two but
never heard anyone.  Is there a particular time for working 160 in contests,
e.g. at the top of each hour?

Anyway, I turned on the rig and, lo and behold, I hear stations on 160.  Well,
you gotta get in there and try it - it is, after all, a contest.  Decided to
enter HP category, no point fooling around.  Crank the MkV up to the full mojo,
200W.

Quickly worked Wwa, Ewa and Or, which I expected to be able to do from my
previous tests.  Heard some W6es and called and called but no answer.  Then K6SE
heard me, no doubt with great difficulty.  Thanks for hanging in there Earl. 
So, now I got Sjv.  

To bed an hour later, having met my target of 10 Qs.  80 points altogether. 
Sure a lot of QSB.  Is 160 always like that?

Sat night was BCDX Club Xmas dinner meeting and all that implies (hmm... rhymes
with lies).  VE7WR got the best fortune cookie  "You will be loud soon."  The
guys in the club are all getting really old so it broke up pretty early for me. 
Oh well, let's see what's happening on 160.  Got on at 2315 PST.

Hmm... lots of QSB and quite a few stations.  Whoa, what's this?  DX Alert  DX
Alert   a W0 in Co.  Damn, he can't hear me.  Here's an N0.  Things are looking
up.  When I called him he paused before CQing again.  Wow, that's better than
what's been happening so far when calling 0 land.  And on the first call, at
that.  After a lot of persistence he finally dragged me through.  What new
section will it be?  Oh, it's N0AX.  I forgot he is in 7 land.  Thanks for the
patience Ward.

2329  Yippee, another new one, VE7JKZ.

Hey, wonder of wonders, I hear a W9 in Mn.  Too bad he couldn't hear me.  Heard
W6AW lots.  He didn't hear me lots.  Still lots of QSB.  

I am struck by the fact that everyone is sending far more slowly than I am
accustomed to hearing in the other contests.  Could it be because of QSB?  Into
my mind drifts a memory of somebody saying, "When there is rapid QSB, don't send
slow because individual code elements of each character get obliterated.  Send
fast and I'll be able to get the individual characters and will eventually be
able to piece the whole thing together."  So, I fiddled with the Farnsworth
settings in TR to get the characters going out at 23 wpm but significantly
greater space between them in the belief that it will make it easier to
recognize the individual characters.  The other reason for lengthening out the
spaces between characters was that I hear all these guys I really respect
sending way slow.  Only a dork would think that he's going to do better by
sending 6 wpm faster than them, particularly a dork that no one can hear.  "They
must know something I don't."  Well, that's been proven over and over.  So,
lengthening the spaces represents my compromise in trying to come to terms with
this strange slow-sending behaviour.  I do suspect, however, that slower sending
works better in QRN cndx and I know that QRN is more of a problem the lower the
band.  Any comments on this?

Did it help?  Well, you can't argue with the fact of getting another new one
now, can you?  KG7H, Idaho, at 2332.  Hey, this is getting serious.

Had some troubles above about 1825 as the MkV tuner would, above a specific
frequency I don't remember, go from getting the SWR down to about 1.5 to showing
a full scale SWR value with consequent cutting back of the power to 20W or so. 
While fiddling with the tuner button once I managed to shut off the autotune so
I was putting out 20W instead of 200, even on those frequencies where the tuner
would have worked.  I realized this just after working N0AX.  Sorry, Ward.  That
10 dB would have helped.

Finally shut down at 0130 PST having surpassed my upgraded Q target of 25. 
Mults were the above-mentioned sections plus Sv, Scv, Ut and, zowie, KV0Q in Co.
 Yes, I did finally work W6AW.  Heard some guys working JAs.  Didn't hear the
JAs.  Didn't hear any of the Carib stations.  Didn't hear anything east of W9.

The idea here was to try to get some feel for what mults I might be able to get
on 160 in some of the other contests.  An unexpected byproduct was how much this
reminded me of my beginnings in ham radio when W0 really was DX for me.  It was
actually a lot of fun, in a perverted sort of way.  I even got answers to CQs,
about 3 of them.  The experience does encourage me to get the proposed inverted
L up, 50 ft high at the driven end, 30 or so at the other end.  It does not
encourage me to switch to QRP.

73 folks, thanks for your patience and see you this weekend on 10 (where I have
an almost real antenna) de Jim	VE7FO


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