[3830] CQ160 CW W2GD Multi-Op HP

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                    CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW

Call: W2GD
Operator(s): K2SG, K2TW, KU2C, K4ZA, N2EA, N2HM, N2NT, N2OO, W1GD, W2CG,  W2GD, W2NO, W2OB, W2RQ
Station: W2GD

Class: Multi-Op HP
QTH: NJ
Operating Time (hrs): 39

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 1771  State/Prov = 57  Countries = 83  Total Score = 1,106,980

Club: Frankford Radio Club

Comments:

Location:  A salt marsh on Barnagat Bay, West Creek, NJ, ~20 miles north of
Atlantic City.

Run Station:  K3, IC-746, Alpha 91B, 1.5 KW
Mult. Stn:  K3, Alpha 76PA 1 KW
Software:  WIN-TEST 
Antennas:  2 element Vertical Wire Beams NE and W, Vertical Dipole, Beverages
NE, S, SW, W, NW


Well, it wasn't quite as great as last year, when we probably experienced the
best 160 conditions in 2 decades, but it was still lots of fun.  Good friends
getting together to play radio for three days....what can be better than that. 
And Topband was what we expected, wonderfully unpredictable.

First, some history.  Many of you know our team has been having these late
January get togethers in NJ for nearly 25 years.  Originally, in the mid-80's,
we operated from the W2GD home QTH.  At the time, a shunt-fed top loaded 70'
tower with 60 radials and a pair of beverages NE and W were all you needed to
be very competitive in the Multi catagory.  

But as years passed, other teams were making strides with antenna
innovation.....most notably in our area, the WW2Y team came up with one of the
first big mult-element vertical directive arrays, hung in the trees behind
Peter's Princeton home.  The competition was getting stronger and stronger and
we found ourselves clearly outgunned.  So a search to find a new location was
started, hoping a site with close proximity to salt water would level the
playing field.  

Fortunately for us, a team member Marty, W2CG, was active in the USCG reserves,
and worked a miracle for us, securing access to the USCG Station on Sandy Hook,
just a dozen miles SW of lower Manhatten, NYC, and surrounded by salt water on
three sides.  The new site proved to be everything we had hoped.  Delta loops
hung from two self-supporting towers and seveal 900' beverages out on the sand
dunes got us back in the game.  But unfortunately, 9/11 changed the world, and
our access to the site ended.  

Maybe it was fate, because in the summer of 2001 I ended my 22 year management
consulting career, and joined a startup communications company which just
happened to own a 24 acre site on Barnaget Bay, the former public coast staton
WSC.  This isolated property is more than half salt marsh, has a 300' Rohn 55G
tower and 950 sq. ft. ranch style building for operations.  Needless to say it
was the perfect place to continue our annual "Field Day in Januray" maddness. 
Since 2001, we've been operating ARRL 160, TBDC and CQ160 CW from the West
Creek site.  Several years ago, the property was sold to a local FM
broadcaster, who just happens to be a ham and a very understanding host for our
160 operations.

Every year is just a little different.  The cast of characters changes, band
conditions are never the same and are predictably unpredictable, and the
station is almost always configured just a little differently in the hope of
improving efficiency, since the competition is getting tougher and tougher year
after year.   



The TX antenna radiated pretty well toward EU and AS, not quite 
so well elsewhere





For many of us, the CQ160 CW contest is the high point of the contest season. 
It's a gathering of good friends who share a common, and sometimes compulsive
interest in 160M contesting.  Some of us have been getting together on the last
weekend in January for over 25 years, the attraction  to . Its always
interesting, very challenging, and most importantly - FUN.  

And every year is just a little different.  The cast of characters changes ,
band conditions are never the same and are predictably unpredictable, the
station is almost always configured just a little differently in the hope of
improving efficiency, and the competition seems to get tougher and tougher year
after year.   

 something old and something new


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