[3830] RAC Winter VE7FO M/M HP

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                    RAC Winter Contest

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

Class: M/M HP
QTH: Vancouver
Operating Time (hrs): 3.5

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  CW Mults  Ph Mults
----------------------------------------
  160:    5      4       3         3
   80:   19     22       3         4
   40:   14      0       2         0
   20:    0      0       0         0
   15:    8      8       5         3
   10:                              
    6:                              
    2:                              
----------------------------------------
Total:   46     34      13        10  Total Score = 15,042

Club: British Columbia DX Club

Comments:

This is always a fun contest.  We laid-back Canucks like to stop and chat a bit,
maybe have a spot of tea (or a Great White North beer, eh?).  Maybe it's the
Xmas Season that does it.  However, it's a bit hard to schedule time for this
one because of the closeness to Xmas.

I decided to go M/M because I'm still playing around with spots and I didn't
want to have to think about the ten minute rule.  I also like to go mixed in
this one because you can switch to the other mode if Qs dry up on the mode
you're in.

I wasn't able to get on until about 2 hours into the contest.  Nothing on 20 so
hit the low bands.  No rate to speak of but did manage to work VE5RAC on 40 cw
and 160 ssb & cw.  Also VE6RAC on 80 and 160 ssb & cw.  Maybe the 160 inverted L
isn't as useless as I've been thinking.  Somewhere along the way someone
reminded me that 6 and 2m can be used in this contest.  Hmmm... got an old
Hy-Gain 6&2m beam lying on the roof deck and a 706 I could hook it up to.  Went
to bed around 2330 local with 64 Qs and 15 mults.  Pretty pathetic.

Got back on at about 1100 local and found 15 to be fairly active.  I was amazed
at how strong the VE1s were.  All S9.  Usually, if I hear them at all, they're
maybe S2 or 3.  Didn't take too long before I'd pretty well exhausted the
possibilities on 15.  Did work T32Z just to brighten up the log.

All this time, I was being nagged by the thought that there are Qs to be made on
VHF and I wasn't there.  So I decided to bite the bullet, put up the beam and
move the 706 to the op position.  I wasn't really thinking that this would
generate a lot of Qs.  The idea was more that committing to making some VHF Qs
would provide the motivation for getting the beam up.  Besides, how long could
it take?

In the past, I've temporarily mounted the beam on the roof deck on a 10 ft
length of approx 2" EMT with the base stuck in a patio umbrella stand and
3-point guyed with dubious rope at about the 6 ft level and anchored to skinny
screw-eyes screwed into the deck railing.  I've never felt comfortable with this
arrangement, hence it's temporary nature.

This time I thought I'd do it right.  For a start, I wanted to change the guy
point to the top of the EMT to eliminate the possibility of base kick-out so I
fabricated 4 metal guy anchors which would attach to the AlfaSPID rotator
mounting bolts which clamp the rotator to the top of the EMT.  (Yes, serious
rotator overkill but I haven't swapped out the Ham-M on the tribander yet.)  The
bolt pattern is such that I have 4 guy anchors which means 4 guys.  Finally, I
get the beam up in the air with the 5/16" dacron rope from STI for guys attached
to the 1/2" Crosby 18" turnbuckles attached to the Crosby 1/2" shackles, all
load rated, attached to the 3/8" x 3" screw eyes screwed into the 2x4 framing of
the deck railing.  This sucker ain't going nowhere!!  Once again, serious
overkill but I had the stuff laying around and I'm in a hurry to get back to the
contest.  Hmm... the sun has set.  It's 0130Z.  The contest ended 90 minutes
ago.

I really didn't mind missing the rest of the contest as things were pretty slow.
 And I am now QRV on 6 and 2 with no worries about the antenna blowing over. 
So, all's well that ends well.

73 and Happy New Year.

Jim	VE7FO


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