[3830] Commonwealth VE4EAR Open LP

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                    RSGB Commonwealth Contest, CW

Call: VE4EAR
Operator(s): VE4EAR
Station: VE4EAR

Class: Open LP
QTH: 
Operating Time (hrs): 9

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
   80:    3
   40:   39
   20:   72
   15:    6
   10:    0
------------
Total:  120  Total Score = 1,900

Club: 

Comments:

Hope Iscored this correctly.

Talk about Harsh conditions! 40m started with a good opening to no where.
Finally right at sunrise, ZL and VK stated to come through, not strong, but
workable. Even went down to 80m and worked a ZL after sunrise local time.

I was optimistic that 20 may have opened like it had last weekend and even
earlier in the week. No such luck, I guess the sun's latest CME energized the
good ole' Aurora and anything north of a path of 60 degrees from here.(pretty
much all of EU) was all subject to severe polar flutter and distortion. This
made the already difficult task of contest CW copy even more of a challenge for
me. I was only able to work a handful of G,M  and GW stations. Heard a couple VU
stations but the flutter was so bad copy was almost impossible. Hearing a large
pileup I listened intently and decoded the calls, but there was no way my 100w
was going to break the pileup over the pole.

Africa and Caribbean stations were not too difficult to nab. Late in the
afternoon, ZL opened at their sunrise and worked several on 20. Switched to 15m
and worked most of the same ZL stations again.

Then the real trouble started. Sweeping across 20m looking for anything that I
may have missed and suddenly the noise jumped way up and then went to nil. A
quick test showed the VSWR was infinite. As I broke into a cold sweat I had
visions of my antenna sitting in the backyard. As I entered my back yard I
caught a site of my neighbor entering his home. I looked up and the antenna
appeared intact. I checked the cable connections at the base of the tower and
all was intact. Before heading back inside I though I would check my SPG
grounding point and was shocked to find my two lengths of 7/8" Heliax had been
severed just before entering the SPG enclosure. I immediately went to my
neighbor only to be greeted with threats that next time I transmit he was going
to rip the tower down. Not wanting to aggravate the situation I went home,
niting my lip and ready to explode. 

I have had it with this guy. He is a transient, bought the house to renovate it
and flip. With the downturn in the market he is stuck with it and was forced to
move into it. He suffers RFI on his subwoofer and refuses to allow me to help
solve the problem. I have tried being accommodating, reducing my power and have
given him advance warning when I intend to operate contests in the early hours.
I have made pleas to him to allow me to add some filters/ferrites but he ruses
claiming it is my fault. His subwoofer responds to as little as 10 watts on HF,
from an antenna 50m away. It also responds to a 1 watt FRS radio in the same
room. The manufacturer acknowledges the problems and has no solution. 


So I missed the last 12 hours of the BERU contest. From the sounds of the
conditions, 40m may not have opened to EU again but I guess I will never know.

Thanks for the patience and repeats.

I will be QRT until I effect a repair on these two cables.

73

Ed


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