[3830] IARU WX0B(AD5Q) SO CW LP

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                    IARU HF World Championship

Call: WX0B
Operator(s): AD5Q
Station: WX0B

Class: SO CW LP
QTH: Dallas
Operating Time (hrs): 23.5
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Zones  HQ Mults
-------------------------------------
  160:    40            3       2
   80:   129           13       7
   40:   205           17      20
   20:   434           31      17
   15:   548           27      32
   10:    59           10       7
-------------------------------------
Total:  1415    0     101      85  Total Score = 825,654

Club: North Texas Contest Club

Comments:

We've been upgrading WX0B for close to 2 years now (Jay, K5GA, K5RT, K7PN, W2GD,
K4ZA, me, others). The stacks on 10, 15 & 20 were redesigned, the 40's were
tweaked for CW, and a high rotatable dipole replaced the phased wire array on
80 (because it wasn't competitive in stateside contests). The only antennas
that are actually bigger are the 15's, but the whole setup is more versatile.
For the first time in a while, we are QRV on 6 bands, and it was time to try it
all out. 

The station was whacked by a lightning strike recently (actually this happens
fairly often), and some stuff didn't work. I was eager to work within these
limitations. Every circuit related to Icom's CI/V was blown, so one radio
couldn't communicate with the PC, antenna switching, filter switching (on both
radios) and even it's amp. Two of the side mounted antennas rotated but
wouldn't indicate direction, so I would have to mentally keep track of where
they were pointed at night (30 seconds = 90 degrees). The bandpass filter
switching was a bigger problem, as I would have to physically connect single
band filters in the coax jumpers on both rigs, even to check activity on
another band. Instead, we opted to not use any filters â€" by entering in the
low power category. The opportunity to place first in this category was very
attractive â€" and achievable with this setup.

Though I don't have a strategy for operating a DX contest with low power, much
of the rate in this contest is stateside. I knew that runs would be less
enduring, and expected to rely on the 2nd radio to augment rate. There were
actually a lot of mults that I came across, called and never worked -
especially on 20, and nearly all were HQ mults. I spent plenty of time trying
to work these guys. Only a few situations were pileups â€" mostly they just
CQ'ed in my face â€" or copied part of the call and gave up after several
fills. If the east EU guys were only 569, I couldn't work them with 100 watts
and a stack! Why is eastern Europe always louder than western Europe? These are
serious alligators. All would have been easy contacts with an amp.

But there was a contributing factor on 20 (weird). The SWR on the stack
measured a perfect 1.00 to 1, even though I knew the individual antennas were
all about 1.2:1 in the CW band. Not a cause for concern? I found out late that
the middle antenna was actually 5:1 and wasn't working (we haven't diagnosed
why yet). So I switched to just the top and bottom antennas and 20 really
started to play. I got the 20M qso numbers up by running JA's until the band
quit, knowing that any runs on 40 would be lower point value because EU's are
difficult to run from here even with an amp.

At some point in the night I made a major mistake. I turned the top 40M antenna
90 degrees (count 30 seconds, no indicator on rotor) the WRONG way. In other
words, the Asians were 20+ db down on the 2D-40A. I thought the Asia opening on
40 was poor. Signals were weak and watery, and in the last minutes of the
contest I realized that my only JA was 8N1HQ. So my one and only zone 45 was
worked 6 minutes before the end of the contest and the 40M numbers are kinda
low.

Some antenna work remains, so I anticipate a couple more trips to Dallas before
the big events in the fall. There is one more antenna to build: the low 10.
Operation in the August NAQP would help identify and work out some additional
glitches. It's good that the station is back in the loop.

Roy â€" AD5Q


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