[3830] CQ160 CW ZL1AZE Single Op HP

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                    CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW

Call: ZL1AZE
Operator(s): ZL1AZE
Station: ZL1AZE

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: ZL
Operating Time (hrs): 16

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 50  State/Prov = 7  Countries = 12  Total Score = 8,360

Club: Wellington Amateur Radio Club

Comments:

TX Ant: Inverted vee dipole + inverted L
RX Ant: Terminated Delta Loop
Equipment: FT1000MP Mk V Field radio + AL80A amp 400W

Conditions seemed to range from poor to average at my QTH, with Saturday night
being significantly better than Sunday night. The short path to Asia and Europe
seemed to be in reasonable shape, but propagation to America was poor with QSOs
being limited to the Caribbean and the western areas of USA and Canada. The
best DX worked was RZ2M and RX3APM. I noted that some stations had very loud
signals and good ears to match. In this category, PJ2T was the most notable,
with KV4FZ, JT1CO and several JA stations not far behind. Other loud stations,
like XE1RCS, N7DD and YE1C, were peaking S9 but I had trouble even raising a
QRZ in response to repeated calls.

Despite the patchy conditions I ended up logging twice as many QSOs as in 2009,
mainly due to the use of a new RX antenna which helped me dig another layer of
signals out of the local man made QRN. The QRN emanates from various sources in
a nearby industrial area and is typically S7 to S9 in a 250 Hz bandwidth. The RX
antenna is a terminated delta loop, with the null orientated towards the
industrial area.

My QTH is on a 1000 square metre (1/4 acre) city lot so it is difficult to
squeeze effective 160M TX antennas into such a small area. I used a Z shaped
160M inverted vee dipole and an inverted L antenna (6 x short elevated
radials), with both antennas being supported by a 13 metre tall pole. I noted
that the dipole was often as good as or better than the inverted L. This is
probably due to my QTH being elevated about 100 metres above sea level on a
steep hill side, thereby improving the takeoff for horizontally polarised
signals in the down hill directions.

I always enjoy the unique challenges presented by this contest. Many thanks for
the QSOs and persevering to copy my weak signal from down under!


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