[3830] CQ160 CW NH0J(@AH0J) Multi-Op HP

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                    CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW

Call: NH0J
Operator(s): JA1LZR W1NN
Station: AH0J

Class: Multi-Op HP
QTH: KH0
Operating Time (hrs): 15

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 274  State/Prov = 9  Countries = 29  Total Score = 101,840

Club: North Coast Contesters

Comments:

This was an operation from a new station being built on Tinian Island by AH0J
(JA1NVF) and NH0Z (JA1LZR, formerly N2AIR).  Kit and Joe started setting up
this station just a year ago and today it consists of a rather modest set of
wire antennas and a single StepIR 2-element tribander mounted next to the
balcony and rotated using the armstrong method.  

The station is located close to the high point of the island with a good shot
towards EU and NA.  From the north-facing balcony, the apartment has a great
view of the ocean and the central part of the island, and we all enjoyed
relaxing here after working hard on the antennas.  They had managed to put up
antennas for all bands except 160 during the first year of the station’s
life, and the main purpose of our trip was to put up transmit and receive
antennas for 160 and do the best we could in the contest.  Traveling from Japan
for this effort were JA1NVF, JE1KUC, JA1LZR, and W1NN.  The latter two were the
ops during the contest.

The plan was to erect the transmit antenna on Friday and the beverage on
Saturday.  The contest would begin at 8 AM local on Saturday but there
wouldn’t be any activity for us until sundown on Saturday so we had two full
days to do our antenna work.  

For the transmit antenna, we had an 18 meter Spiderbeam mast and plenty of wire
and rope to work with.  Since the mast would accommodate less than half of the
length of the radiator, we decided to erect a modified inverted L with a
portion of the wire running off the top of the mast and the rest wound around
the bottom.  Since the mast is quite thin at the top, and since the only
support we had was a 15 meter length of bamboo pole, we were limited in the
amount of wire we could use for the horizontal portion.  We ended up winding a
huge length of the antenna around the lower portion of the mast and running the
some extra out away from the bottom of the antenna in the shape of a delta to
use it up.  We also laid out ten quarter wave radials plus another ten or so
shorter ones.  This was quite a difficult task as it involved hiking through
thick jungle underbrush filled with various burrs and tiny thorns.  It took the
four of us much of the day to finish this job and we were tired, sunburned and
scratched up.  At night we managed to work quite a few JA stations with this
antenna, so at least it was getting out.

The beverage went up on Saturday.  This was another task involving much
trudging through underbrush.  We were quite concerned about our ground, as you
quickly run into coral down a few inches into the ground.  We managed to get
short ground rods in the ground at both ends but we were not very confident
that the antenna would work very well.  We simply didn't have the time to
install a ground mat or similar to replace our poor ground.

The contest started off as expected Saturday night our time with a couple of
good hours running mostly JA stations.  The first QSO went in the log at 0845Z.
 Most of Japan is around 1,500 miles due north of Tinian so there was no trouble
hearing these stations.  The occasional zone 19, 30 and 31 station called in but
the hoped-for east coast callers did not appear.  It was not until 1218Z that we
managed to find and work N7DD for our first NA contact.  The next couple of
hours brought only 8 more NA stations.  N9RV, W7RN and KV0Q were quite loud,
but the others we worked and those we didn't were weak.  EU was even worse. 
After much calling, we finally managed to get RL3A to hear us at 1642Z but none
of the other weak stations we tried calling could hear us.  Tired from our hard
antenna work during the day and discouraged, and with few new JA stations to
work, we took a three hour break in the middle of the night and got on again a
couple of hours before our sunrise.  But we could only add four more EU
stations in the 20Z hour, each Q being a struggle.  Day One ended with 171
total contacts, including only 9 NA and 5 EU.    

Both the vertical and the beverage had seemed very quiet during the day but
with sunset we had an S6 buzzing noise that we just couldn't eliminate with the
K3.  With the dawn the noise was gone.  Later we deduced that it was probably
coming from one of the few streetlights within miles of us that just happened
to be about 200 meters from both of our antennas.    

We were somewhat relieved to read various reports that almost everyone else was
struggling too, but we decided that both antennas needed help.  So on Sunday
morning, we took down the transmit antenna, removed the radiator, and started
over, running 20 meters of very thin wire from the top to our bamboo support as
the horizontal portion.  This sloped downward somewhat but this worked out quite
well and it was actually lighter than the shorter but heavier wire we had used
first.  We only needed to wind a short amount of wire at the bottom and the
antenna loaded fine.  We also switched amps for Day Two, upping our power from
around 500 to nearly the legal limit.  Not quite sure of the source of our
noise at that point, we shortened the beverage in hopes of getting further away
from an electric power line, but this didn’t do anything to help. 

Day Two started off much better with a loud W8JI calling in at our sunset. 
Wow!  Thanks Tom and team.  NQ4I also made it into the log an hour or so later
but those were our only contacts from east of the Mississippi, while most of
the other stations we did contact were very weak.  We were only able to work a
total of 12 NA stations on Day Two.  I later heard from my friend Phil, N0KE,
that he and a number of others were calling us but that we were not hearing
them.  Clearly the transmit antenna was working but the noise was covering up
our callers.  (We would like to hear from anyone else who heard us but
couldn’t get our attention.)

Europe was quite a bit better, however.  Day Two brought 36 more EUs, some of
whom were quite strong as our sunrise approached.  However, the opening was
limited to Eastern and Southern Europe and we never heard or worked a single
zone 14 station.  We read DR1A’s 3830 report that they didn’t manage to
work a single JA, so it looks like conditions just weren’t there.  Perhaps
this is what we will have to face for the next several years on Top Band.

Thanks to all who worked us and apologies to those stations we couldn’t hear.
 We know that many ops need KH0 on 160 and we hope to accommodate as many as
possible in the future.
 
73, Hal W1NN / 7J1AAI


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