[3830] CQ160 CW W4ZV Single Op HP
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Mon Jan 26 07:04:53 EST 2004
CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW
Call: W4ZV
Operator(s): W4ZV
Station: W4ZV
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: NC
Operating Time (hrs): 30
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 1245 State/Prov = 55 Countries = 61 Total Score = 555,176
Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club
Comments:
Congrats to W4AN/W8JI, third year in a row and an operator/owner combination
that gives us all something to shoot for! Here are a few summary comments:
PROPAGATION:
I mostly echo AA1K's comments. Fair conditions to EU Friday night and excellent
in bursts Saturday night. They seemed to come in waves Saturday night with very
pronounced spotlighted areas...I recall F5BBD blowing my ears off while
listening for weak ones. The southern EU areas (YU, S5, I, F, EA, etc)
definitely had the advantage, but there was a nice peak to UR around 0230. At
one point it seemed I had a pileup of UR's calling. When the propagation waves
peaked, it almost sounded like I was on 10 meters with ~10 callers of varying
strengths, QSB, frequencies, etc, making it a challenge to separate them. I
went back to check what was happening with the solar indices Saturday night and
the Kp index was varying from about 4 to 5. I have to wonder what conditions
will be like in a few years when we get to better conditions during the cycle
minimum with a stable geomagnetic field?!
A few highlights:
* finding and JA5DQH and JH4UYB (both water weak) right at my sunrise Saturday
morning. I'm amazed you guys heard me since JA is my worst TX direction with a
gradual rise of several degrees in that direction. First time I've worked JA in
the CQ 160 since they all moved down to 1810-1825.
* working UA9AT who called at 0215Z Saturday night...first time for me to work
UA9 and Z17 in this contest.
* finding and working A61AJ at the end of the contest. He was on 28.6 when I
first heard him but there were several continuous callers who apparently drove
him away. Checking back a few minutes later, the frequency was clear so I
decided to grab it and CQ. As I was just finishing with a caller, I heard A61AJ
come back on and grabbed him before anyone knew he was there. Of course I then
left the frequency to him.
TX ANTENNAS:
I added an inverted-vee at 100' apex on a separate tower to my normal 180'
shunt-fed tower TX antenna this year. I've been amazed how this high-angle
antenna seems to work at sunset. I haven't used it much since my first QSO was
with RA6AX at my sunset on 21 January, but we exchanged 589's when he was
inaudible on the vertical or any Beverages! I've wanted to have a high-angle
antenna since I last had one in Colorado and it will be fun to play with this.
This is the antenna I used to snag A61AJ mentioned above. Next year, I need to
try adding some gain on TX and am very interested in what W2GD/K2TW have done
with their Delta loop reflector and half-wave slopers.
RX ANTENNAS:
8 single-wire Beverages at 30/70/95/140/205/240/280/330 (500-1000' lengths).
The 240 was temporary only in a neighbor's cow pasture (putting it up at sunset
and taking it down at sunrise). I also added a stagger-phased pair of 1100
footers at 50 degrees to reject the storm QRN we often have at this time of
year. I've discovered I have about a 6 dB increase in noise floor on the 50 &
70 degree Beverages, apparently due to New London (pop ~400) being only 2 miles
in that direction, and need to shift my phased pair to 30 degrees next year to
minimize that noise. Most of my RX antennas must come down between March and
November due to being in cultivated fields. Now my worry is an approaching ice
storm with .5" of ice being forecasted!
CONTROL:
With 9 different RX directions plus the two TX antennas, I need to work out a
better control system for next year. Orion has some great capability in
Diversity mode which I need to take better advantage of with better RX antenna
control.
EQUIPMENT:
First time using Orion in the CQ 160, although I've been using it since August
with good success in both CQ WW contests on 10 meters. I turned off my Beverage
preamp during the contest and never heard any IMD products, with Orion's
internal preamp ON and with max RF gain. The danger I see with Orion is that
the DSP filters are so sharp at ~500 Hz that it is easy to miss off-frequency
callers, and I suspect I missed several this weekend. I think the solution is
to use Orion in Diversity with a narrow filter on the Main RX / preferred
direction Beverage, but use the Sub RX with a wider BW / different passband and
secondary Beverage direction or perhaps an omni TX antenna. Also for the first
time, I tried using Orion's Sub RX to scan the band when runs became slow and
this worked quite well. This can become much better after more practice and
after I figure out a better control scheme for RX antennas feeding the Sub RX.
BTW, my Orion had zero crashes or other problems using Ten-Tec's latest beta
software.
I had major keying problems. I did not want to risk CT 10 and CT 9.92 is the
only version with Orion support which I mistakenly thought I wanted. Actually
it is not necessary in a single-band contest, but I thought I wanted it to log
frequencies for later analysis. The problem is that 9.92 has some strange
timing anomalies in the keying timing which sounded awful. After awhile, I
started trying to use my old Logikey K-1's memories, but it has a contact bounce
problem with the pushbuttons and randomly repeats sequences! I had to have my
hand on the paddle ready to tap it if it started repeating the sequence.
Finally, Sunday afternoon I wised up and installed CT 9.82 which had no keying
problems. On top of all this, I had injured my right wrist earlier in the week
which caused problems using my paddle. So maybe this explains my QLF this
weekend!
SUMMARY:
As always, my favorite contest! It seems to me that signals are getting
cleaner, activity is increasing, antennas are improving, and the level of
competition just keeps increasing. I just keep wondering what the CQ 160 will
sound like at the cycle low in 2006 or 2007! Thanks to all for the great
weekend and see you next year.
73, Bill W4ZV
North America CW 1009 78.8
South America CW 9 0.7
Europe CW 251 19.6
Asia CW 5 0.4
Africa CW 2 0.2
Oceania CW 5 0.4
PRFX 160
5B 1
8P 1
9A 3
A6 1
C3 1
C6 1
CM 4
CT 2
D4 1
DL 42
EA 8
EA8 1
EI 3
ER 1
ES 1
EU 2
F 10
FG 1
FM 2
G 22
GD 1
GW 4
HA 9
HB 1
HI 2
I 10
IT9 1
JA 2
KH6 3
KP2 1
LA 1
LX 3
LY 7
OE 2
OH 1
OK 24
OM 8
ON 4
OZ 1
PA 8
PJ2 2
PY 2
PY0F 1
S5 18
SM 2
SP 12
T9 2
TK 1
UA 11
UA2 4
UA9 1
UR 10
V3 1
VK 1
VP5 1
XE 6
YL 2
YU 9
YV 4
ZF 1
ZL 1
Missed VE4/5/6/8/9, VO2, VY1/0
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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