[3830] ARRLDX CW T27A M/S LP

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                    ARRL DX Contest, CW

Call: T27A
Operator(s): W7YAQ, N7OU
Station: T27A

Class: M/S LP
QTH: Funafuti, Tuvalu
Operating Time (hrs): 48

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:   32    14
   80:  316    53
   40:  701    55
   20:  350    50
   15:   66    25
   10:           
-------------------
Total: 1465   197  Total Score = 865,815

Club: Willamette Valley DX Club

Comments:

This was a full time effort, but out this far into the Pacific (8 S, 178 E --
north of Fiji) we simply had to accept that there is not 24-hour propagation to
North America for those of us with simple antennas and 100 watts! Being stuck in
the endless sunspot minimum sure didn't help either.  There were at least 6
hours with zero QSOs, but it wasn't because we weren't in the chair!

As you can see 40 was the workhorse.  15 meters was a big disappointment with
only a marginal Sunday opening.  20 would open around local sunrise 1800 UTC
and be great for an hour or two, but then signals from east of the Rockies
would shift to long path (or worse, both paths) and we could only work the
occasional west coaster who happened to have his/her beam pointed to the
Pacific.  And from 2200 - 0100 the crowd are all beaming JA, so those few of us
in the Pacific beyond KH6 just aren't heard.

Funafuti atoll is about 300 feet wide at the guest house where we are staying
-- lagoon and road on the west, house and ocean (and surf) to the east, very
dense pandamus trees on the surf side with nearly continuous canopy.

Antenna layout:
160 -- MA160V, short top-loaded.  Antenna in front yard of guest house midway
between lagoon and ocean.  Tough to grind through the noise or be heard, but
had a bit of an opening Sunday morning for the fortunate few.
80 -- HF9V, in among the pandamus trees along the eastern surf line.  We did
not complete plans (still pending) to get an 80 inverted vee into a 60 foot
palm on the lagoon side.  Keep listening for us and if our signal picks up you
know that Bill fired a slingshot line over the tree and we managed to get the
feedline high enough over the road that the traffic didn't take it down.
40 -- quarter wave vertical with 2 elevated radials poking through the pandamus
canopy on the east
20 -- Same HF9V -- attempted 2-element Moxon did not perform as well as the
HF9
15 -- 2-element Moxon.  (This one was better that the HF9) 

K3s worked great!

Tnx all the Qs.  QSL via W7YAQ or LOTW.

73,
Bob T27A


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