[3830] ARRL 160 W2GD M/S HP
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Mon Dec 4 21:37:22 EST 2006
ARRL 160-Meter Contest
Call: W2GD
Operator(s): K2SG, K2TW, N2EA, N2HM, N2OO, W1GD, W2CG, W2GD, W2KP, W2NO, W2OB
Station: W2GD
Class: M/S HP
QTH: SNJ
Operating Time (hrs): 41
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 1513 Sections = 77 Countries = 50 Total Score = 438,023
Club: Frankford Radio Club
Comments:
Station Location: In a salt marsh adjacent to Barnagat Bay, 20 miles north of
Atlantic City, NJ, 70 miles south of NY. This is the site of former marine
coast station WSC. The location features a 300 foot tall tower (previously
used as a 500 khz vertical) surrounded by a minimum of 600 feet of tidal salt
marsh. This is a temporary FD style station set up for 5 months each
fall/winter
specifically for the 160M contest season. It is also the future home of
WYRS-FM.
Station Equipment:
Run Station: IC756ProIII, IC746 (rx only), Alpha 99
Mult Station: IC756ProII, AL1200
Antennas:
2 element sloping dipole array fed against a delta loop reflector @ 190' above
the salt marsh. Array fires NE, West or Omni, and is fed with 550' of 5/8 inch
heliax from tower to station building.
Inverted L (62 ft. vertical) with 4 elevated tuned radials above the
marsh.
2 ele 930' phased NE beveage array - 280 foot spacing
2 ele 1/4W staggered 580' West beverage array - 20 foot spacing
2 ele 1/4W staggered 580' NW beverage array - 20 foot spacing
580' unterminated beverages to the East, South, and Southwest
The Story:
This year's adventure in 160M contesting from the New Jersey shoreline began
in
November, the weekemd before CQWW CW. Six of our core Team and several members
of the SJDXA converged on the site to put up the TX antennas and make repairs to
the permanent beverage rx arrays. A few weeks earlier K2TW had visited the
station site to take inventory of equipment and test all feedlines for loss.
In a salt water environment you cannot leave anything to chance and feedlines
are particularly vunerable.
Our biggest problem last season was poor performance of the two ele phased NE
beverage. We finally determined after testing the matching transformers that
they were not properly phased and this was most likely the source of the
problem. New units built by W2NO were installed and the antenna now hears
exceptionally well (and a major reason for our success this past weekend).
Work commitments limited to four the number of our core team who could come
and
help setup the morning of December 1st. But we managed to finish fine tuning
the TX antennas before noon. Walking the beverages we found several trees down
but nothing too difficult to repair. The weather cooperated at least for the
setup period....the rain that had been forecast was not yet falling, but the
wind was a sustained 30 mph with gusts over 45. Later on that day and evening
the fury of mother nature in the form of a very strong appoaching cold frount
would take its toll on the operation. The remainder of the beverage work
involved installing some transformers and feedlines. Listening on the antennas
seemed to confirm they were hearing well and there was very little line noise
this time. But during the process of testing the beverage switching system, we
discovered the coax jacks were incorrectly labled on the master distribution
box. No telling how long (e.g. years) we had been connecting the rx antennas
incorrectly. :-(
The biggest challenge of the weekend again turned out to be setting up the
computer network (we use 3 computers). First we came up with a dead computer
(bad power supply). Fortunately W2KP was willing to go home and bring his PC
over for the weekend. W2CG, W2NO and N2EA did there best to sort out things
but without much success for about 2 hours. At 2100 it was time to call the
experts to get the problem resolved - then and there (last year we didn't get
the network up and running until Saturday afternoon). Through the assistance
and direction provided during a telephone consultation with Dallas, W3PP, the
N1MM network configuration problem was finally resolved, and everything was
actually in working order a full 15 minutes before the bell! TNX again
Dallas!
Conditions both nights never approached the levels of the CQWW CW the week
before. And to further complicate things, the strong storm front was moving
rapidly in our direction. At the start of the contest static crashes were 20
over 9 or more, and it was extremely difficult to copy even the loudest
stations. The high QRN level continued for several hours so we apologize for
those who called and we just could not copy you during the storm. As others
have commented signals from EU were best near sundown both days, but we saw
some signal enhancement at EU sunrise the first night, but not the second
night. Despite the noise we somehow managed to log 6 EU stations and 2 other 5
pointers during the first hour, 6 more EU the second hour, and another 52 five
pointers through the rest of the first night (this total is down about 25% from
2005). Fortunately once the storm dissapated, the band became fairly quiet, with
little atmospheric or power grid noise the remainder of the contest. Conditions
to the western US seemed about normal, with all states/sections worked except
KL7, VE4, VE8 and PR the first night. It was very nice to have ZL6QH answer a
CQ (we missed working them in 2005). We noted KL7RA was spotted numerous times
but we never heard Rich, nor did we hear any JA stations which was a major
disappointment. W2OB was kind enough to operate the station during daylight
hours on Saturday putting another 55 hard earned contacts in the log.
Saturday night the QRN was gone but the band sounded flat from absorption. We
added about another 50 EU stations but there were no sustained runs. UA9CLB
called in at 2242Z for a nice surprise. We added 9 more EU mults, PR as our
final section mult, and EA8, 5B4 and VP2V made it into the log as well. In
general stations seemed weaker with greater QSB from all directions. Once
again no JA opening at sunrise although a JA station spotted us about 10Z.
W2KP kept the station on the air after local sunrise, adding another 39
contacts before the final bell.
Our final score is up about 5% compared to 2005 (83 more contacts, two
additional mults). We had alot of fun and hope you did too.
With the ARRL 160 now behind us, we're now looking forward to the TBDC on 30
Dec. 06 and CQ160 CW on 27/28 Jan. 07.
Congrats to Bob, W4MYA and Jon, AA1K for there outstanding one-man multi
efforts, and to W8JI, CG3EJ, K9DX, and others for their iron man single op
scores. BRAVO gentlemen!
We sincerely thank the owners of WYRS-FM for allowing our continued use of this
fantastic radio facility for 160M events.
73,
John, W2GD (for the entire 160 TEAM)
Continental Breakdown
North America CW 1445 91.3
South America CW 5 0.3
Europe CW 126 8.0
Asia CW 2 0.1
Africa CW 1 0.1
Oceania CW 4 0.3
HOUR 160 HR TOT CUM TOT
22 98/34 98/34 98/34
23 85/19 85/19 183/53
0 99/12 99/12 282/65
1 104/8 104/8 386/73
2 88/9 88/9 474/82
3 91/8 91/8 565/90
4 84/3 84/3 649/93
5 61/6 61/6 710/99
6 48/5 48/5 758/104
7 35/0 35/0 793/104
8 33/3 33/3 826/107
9 25/0 25/0 851/107
10 17/1 17/1 868/108
11 31/1 31/1 899/109
12 21/0 21/0 920/109
13 15/0 15/0 935/109
14 6/0 6/0 941/109
15 11/0 11/0 952/109
16 3/0 3/0 955/109
17 . . 955/109
18 10/0 10/0 965/109
19 9/0 9/0 974/109
20 17/0 17/0 991/109
21 40/3 40/3 1031/112
22 61/3 61/3 1092/115
23 55/1 55/1 1147/116
0 35/2 35/2 1182/118
1 36/2 36/2 1218/120
2 49/1 49/1 1267/121
3 40/1 40/1 1307/122
4 33/1 33/1 1340/123
5 34/0 34/0 1374/123
6 21/0 21/0 1395/123
7 20/1 20/1 1415/124
8 15/0 15/0 1430/124
9 9/1 9/1 1439/125
10 17/0 17/0 1456/125
11 18/0 18/0 1474/125
12 16/0 16/0 1490/125
13 12/0 12/0 1502/125
14 6/0 6/0 1508/125
15 5/0 5/0 1513/125
DAY1 1031/113 . 1031/113
DAY2 482/14 . 482/14
TOT 1513/127 . 1513/127
W2GD ARRL 160 METER CONTEST Multi Multi 3 Dec 2006 1556z
PRFX 160
5B 1
8P 1
9A 1
C6 1
CM 1
CT 1
DL 19
EA 1
EA6 1
EA8 1
EI 2
ES 1
F 8
G 21
GI 1
GJ 1
GM 2
GW 2
HA 2
HB 3
HI 1
HK0/a 1
HP 2
I 8
LA 1
LY 1
LZ 1
OE 1
OH 3
OK 10
OM 3
ON 4
OZ 1
P4 2
PA 2
PJ2 1
PY 1
S5 2
SM 5
SP 4
SV 1
UA 6
UA9 1
UR 5
VP2V 1
XE 1
YU 2
YV 1
ZF 1
ZL 1
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