[3830] ARRLDX CW KB1H M/2 HP

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                    ARRL DX Contest, CW

Call: KB1H
Operator(s): KB1H, W1UJ, NB1U, AA1CE, K1EBY, NR1X
Station: KB1H

Class: M/2 HP
QTH: ct
Operating Time (hrs): 48

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:   88    48
   80:  474    80
   40: 1194   106
   20: 1626   116
   15: 1553   119
   10:  117    65
-------------------
Total: 5052   534  Total Score = 8,082,090

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments:

Quite a weekend! Never ever ready to go at the start. This year we had issues
with the K0XG ring rotor which was to turn the new full size 3-element 40M
beam. The beam was stuck south! The 20M top antenna had an open coax where a
repair done in cold weather awhile back failed.

Friday - I, KB1H, made two climbs up the 20M 90' tower to bring down the bad
coax and then re-install. I also found that the bolt through the mast/T2X was
sheared.The u-bolts on the mast clamp were loose as well. I know there are
older people than me still climbing but it sure is getting  harder and harder.
We need to find some young blood or train some monkeys.

Contest started with K1EBY and NB1U on the radios. W1UJ came an hour later but
the first two guys stayed in the seat for the first hours. We only still had
the 40M 4-square which really is at a disadvantage as the evening goes on. The
first night the 4-Square did a good job. Maybe conditions helped that.

Saturday - Plans had been made to attack the ring rotor. AA1CE and KE1LI were
here to climb the 155' and try to make repairs. The problem turned out to not
be what we had expected. Down they came with the problem. I called my neighbor
who runs a welding shop and asked if he could do me a favor. He made the welds
we needed and Dave and Paul went back up the 155'. When all was put back
together there was no CW rotation! We manually bypassed the control and parked
the antenna on Europe. Now the fun started. KB1H established a run frequency on
7006 and had the run started. NR1X then took over and eventually moved down to
7003. We stayed at 7003 until 6AM Sunday! Normally we are many hundreds behind
in 40M QSOs(40-50%) from some of the other bigger stations. In the end we were
only a few hundred and that was with no beam Friday night. I think we are
finally competitive on 40M now.

Saturday night I felt the 80M 4-Square was not switching. At times it seemed to
be OK. Thought it may have been conditions. Sunday W1UJ and K1EBY opened the
control box and found serious damage. After replacing a fried diode it still
did not work right. Another repair to do before SSB.

20M and 15M Saturday produced nice rates. 300+ for a few hours. 15M being the 
biggest rate.

During the day we also checked our elevated radials on the 40M and 80M
4-Square systems. Found two down on 80M and one on 40M. We found this problem
Friday night when KB1H and W1UJ went out with flashlights.

Murphy - We lost one of the Ten Tec Titans but had another. That meant putting
an old TL-922 in service at the third operating position. Had a failure of a 12
VDC Astron. Replaced that. Sunday we troubleshot the ring rotor and found what
looks like a bad control relay coil. Everyone was too tired to fix this.

Our coffee maker stopped working so a new Keurig was purchased.

Summary - We ended with about 100K points less than last year. I suspect this
is not what others experienced however I have not seen many comments on
breaking last year's scores. The 40M (we fondly call "The Dallas") worked
excellent. This antenna started more than 10 years ago. We had to put up a new
155" Rohn 45 tower just for this Antenna. 10M was very disappointing after what
we did in CQWW. The other bands were OK. 160M Saturday night was really nice.
Most of the 160 QSOs were Saturday.

As usual, this is a team effort and big thanks go out to AA1CE and KE1LI for
getting us the 40M antenna Saturday. The weekend before AA1CE climbed in 10
degree F weather to look at the problem. We could have used a few more
operators expecially for overnight but we made do with who was here. N1WK also
did his usual preparation for our work by organizing needed parts.

Thanks for the QSOs and see everyone in two weeks.


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