[3830] ARRLDX SSB W0AH SOAB QRP

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                    ARRL DX Contest, SSB

Call: W0AH
Operator(s): W0AH
Station: W0AH

Class: SOAB QRP
QTH: Colorado
Operating Time (hrs): 20

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:           
   80:    6     5
   40:   29    20
   20:  152    62
   15:  230    69
   10:   74    32
-------------------
Total:  491   188  Total Score = 276,924

Club: Grand Mesa Contesters of Colorado

Comments:

SHORT:  Conditions were very good on 15 and 20; all my equipment worked (at
least some of the time).  Thanks for your good ears.  I love QRP, but realize
you guys do most of the work.
LONG: Just returned from month-long trip to Texas where I walked and jogged 35
miles a week.  As it turned out, I needed to be in good condition for this
contest. I entered shack 15 minutes before test began for the first time in 5
weeks.  All 4 rotators were working so I thought, "all is well."  Boy was I
wrong!  Friday night: On 20M I was using the 80M delta loop since it, and not
the 3 el at 90', was connected to my 300' of hardline!  No wonder that dern 20M
beam was working so poorly!  Saturday morn I put on snowshoes (they used to work
when I didn't weigh so much :-) and trudged through 2-3 feet of snow and dug up
both coax lines and the hardline so I could hook up the 20M beam. Also Friday
night I found that my 220 MHz array and not the 2 el 40M beam was hooked up to
another run of hardline.  So I used the Hytower on 40M.  Saturday we had close
to the highest winds ever recorded here (58 MPH on my anenometer at the roof
level- probably 85MPH at the tower tops) and my adventure with getting the 20M
antenna hooked up in the blizzard was so exhausting that I almost threw in the
towel.  I knew I couldn't climb the tower to switch the coax from the 220 array
to the 40M beam, but by nightfall the wind had dropped to 20 MPH and I did just
that.  By Saturday afternoon the 10M and 15M momobanders on a third tower were
not rotating.  Sunday morning, I climbed that 50' tower in still pretty high
winds. My wife who watched from the kitchen window asked why I didn't attach the
climbing belt that she insisted I take up the tower.  When I got down, I told
her truthfully that if the tower blew down, I thought I might survive by jumping
off the tower into the 2-3 feet of snow.  The problem was an easy fix.  The coax
to the 10M beam was not being held up by the old electrical tape, and the weight
of it was not letting the rotar rotate. The rest of the contest everything
worked FB. When it got slow Saturday and Sunday afternoons I listened to a
couple of hours of Rockies' baseball and on Sunday took a three mile walk.
As many have observed, you can work an awful lot QRP if you are perservering.  I
called most stations that were at least S7, worked about 80% of them with
perhaps an average of 4 or 5 calls.  The exception was 40M where most stations
S9+ didn't hear me, and I usually gave up after a dozen or more calls. 
Rig IC-850 at 5W   Antennas: monobanders on 10 (two), 15, 20, and 40 all on
separate towers.  Delta Loop and Hytower on 75M.
Doug W0AH  Woodland Park CO


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