[3830] ARRL 160 K9YC M/S HP

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                    ARRL 160-Meter Contest

Call: K9YC
Operator(s): K9YC
Station: K9YC

Class: M/S HP
QTH: SCV
Operating Time (hrs): 27

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 740  Sections = 76  Countries = 13  Total Score = 145,604

Club: Northern California Contest Club

Comments:

Missed VE4, NL, PR (never heard them or saw a spot) and NNY (spotted 
once, heard him well, but too early for him to hear me). Here at my 
quiet QTH in the Santa Cruz Mountains, I start hearing a lot of east 
coast signals Q5 around their sunset, but it's at least 3-4 hours 
before I can get them to hear me. 

Holdouts:  VT, WTX, VE2 came before midnight Saturday. RI, NLI, and 
WPA around East Coast sunrise Sunday. Finally, ND at 6:14 am PST, 
about an hour after his sunrise!  Things got pretty slow after 11PM 
Saturday evening -- an average of only 14/hr -- but yielded 5 mults 
and 7 DX Q's. Persistance pays off!

DX:  37-JA, 4-UA0, C6, CM, P4, PJ2, VP2M, XE, E51, ZL, HI, HL, FO. 
CM and HI were new countries for me on 160, bringing me up to 61. 
(Unlike some others, who I view as big-time cheaters, I've started 
from scratch on DXCC after moving more than halfway across the 
continent). 

ARRL 160 is probably my favorite contest, and last year was my first 
from CA -- 582 x 79 (74 sections, 5 DX) for 97,407. That was my 
trusty TS850, top-loaded vertical with 40 70-ft radials, 100 ft high 
dipole, and two reversible Beverages. I've been working toward 
improving on that ever since. 

Buying an MP and learning to use the 2nd VFO to S&P while running on 
the main VFO was the first step. Butt in the chair time at N6RO for 
several contests was a big help. Many thanks to WX5S, WA6O, K7NV, 
and Ken for the mentoring. In the days leading up to the contest, I 
added 20 radials >100 ft. 

The final improvement came from reading N6LF's suggestion to tune a 
vertical a bit long (so that Zs = 50 +j40), then adding series C to 
tune out the inductance. It seemed to me that this should reduce the 
ground loss (and the wire loss), because the resulting Rr is higher. 
My top-loaded vertical IS a bit long, so I tried it. Some careful 
comparitive signal reports from K6MM Friday afternoon were that it 
gave me a fractional S-unit, and pulled my barefoot MP a bit higher 
with respect to his S8 noise level!  

Last year, I actively switched between the high dipole and the 
vertical. I found that in daylight and a few hours before/after the 
transition in darkness, the vertical was consistently a lot better 
(even for short distances), but that in full darkness, the dipole 
could often be better at both long and short distances. This year, I 
hoped to use the dipole, but chose not to, because I wasn't able to 
perform some important maintenance on it. High power had already 
melted the rope holding up one end of it, and it fell to the ground. 
A month ago, I got it back in the air with an insulator on that end, 
but some trees in the way prevented me from adding the insulator to 
the other end. So to avoid another expensive failure (tree climbers 
make good money!), I stuck with the vertical this time around.  

Finally, some mental prep time was a big help. I went to bed 
Saturday morning missing 11 mults. With my morning (afternoon, 
actually) coffee, I studied old logs to learn what stations worked 
160 in those sections, when they operated, and whether they called 
CQ or worked S&P. I also used qrz.com and vanityhq.com to figure out 
which of the guys I worked a few years back were no longer licensed. 

I knew to expect W1OP (a club station) to start running after 0800Z, 
that the last topbanders in NNY and VE4 had died a few years ago, 
that W2HLI and NT2A were the last guys in NLI, that W0ZTL might be 
on for a while Friday evening, but hated pileups and would quickly 
disappear, and that other small ND stations had a habit of showing 
up around sunrise Sunday morning. I also knew the calls of the 160 
ops in all of those sections, as well as the guys in RI and WTX who 
worked 80CW in SS. 

My hat is off to W7RN, N6RO, W6NV, KX7M, and N6WG, all of whom have 
already posted great scores, and to N6RK, who I expect to do the 
same. And MANY THANKS to those who spotted me (especially K7XC, who 
must have spotted the entire band at least a half dozen times), and 
to those who fired up small stations with makeshift antennas to 
contribute Q's. 

73,

Jim K9YC


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