[3830] ARRL 160 W2GD M/S HP

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                    ARRL 160-Meter Contest

Call: W2GD
Operator(s): K2TW KU2C N2HM N2NC N2OO W2CG W2GD W2NO W2OB W2RQ WW2Y
Station: W2GD

Class: M/S HP
QTH: SNJ - FM29LL
Operating Time (hrs): 31

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 1474  Sections = 80  Countries = 41  Total Score = 427,130

Club: Frankford Radio Club

Comments:

QTH:  West Creek, NJ, on Barnagat Bay, 20 miles north of Atlantic City, the home
of WYRS-FM.

STN:  K3 x 3, Alpha 99, Acom 2S1 switch, Win-Test Software

ANT:  A 300' Rohn 55G tower surrounded by salt marsh for a minimum of 400',
that supports two element vertical wire beams NE and WSW, apex ropes at 240
feet.  Beverages SW, W, NW, N/S, and NE.

CONTEST COMMENTS (Long...Bare with Me):

Felt great to be back to compete in this year's ARRL 160.  Last December our
station co-located at the WYRS-FM site was in full recovery mode following
Hurricane Sandy.  The storm surge of 13+ feet brought water right up to the
building foundation, flooding the sub-basement and submerging every coax and
control line that entered the building.  Even one of our beverage antennas
eight feet in the air went underwater during the height of the storm.  We've
come a long way since then to remediate the direct and indirect damage caused
by Sandy.

Site prep began last summer and in more earnest three weeks ago.  Over the
summer, W2NO examined and tested over 2500 feet of feedlines for salt damage,
cut back the damage and put on new connectors as required.  

Three weeks ago two new 900' beverage elements were strung out in the woods
toward Europe - a second pair of phased elements, so we'll be able to select NE
phased array A, phased array B, or combine A & B into a 4 ele array.  

Last weekend, our time-tested multi-element vertical wire array was reinstalled
on the 300' tower at 240' (typically it goes up in November and comes down in
April)....a difficult and slow 5 hour project which requires workers to
navigate about in knee deep tidal water in a marsh (its never fun to fall in
the water - we have all done it one time or another).  Thankfully the weather
cooperated with temps. in the low 40s, no wind and some sun.  

This past Wednesday about 2200 feet of feedlines were deployed to the beverage
antenna feedpoints, and every beverage element was walked (8000+ feet of
trudging about in the woods/fresh water marsh).  And since last spring many
more trees have fallen, requiring beverage wires to be restrung over new
obstructions and spliced where needed.  We also found local hunters removed
sections of one of the beverages....requiring its replacement/repair.  

Friday morning during station setup we again found problems with the tuning of
the NE TX array (it was acting like a dummy load, with 200 khz of bandwidth). 
Another trip out to the tower/marsh to make adjustments.  Unfortunately we
didn't discover the actual root cause of the problem until after the contest.

Traditionally the ARRL 160 is a 'warm up' event for us, an opportunity to test
improvements made since last season, and to make repairs as we find problems
during operation....this is a temporary FD operation which has limited
permanent infrastructure.  Our goal is to be completely fault free for the TBDC
and CQ160 CW ...international events we feel are more important.  The ARRL 160
is a domestic SS type event....that serves the purpose of introducing many
newbies to 160m operation.  We were very happy to learn the ARRL has FINALLY
decided to add the SOA entry class so single ops using cluster no longer have
to compete with the M/S groups.  Now if only the ARRL would change the
definition of Low Power from 150W to 100W to be consistent with 99% of all
other contests (this applies to FD, ARRL DX, 10M and IARU in particular), then
the major ARRL rule anomolies will have been resolved.  I know...its the
League, nothing happens very quickly.  

Surprisingly we were ready to go 2 hours before the bell. For the first 6 hours
the Q rate was terrific, in the 120 range for the most part, with the run and
mult station operators working in tandem.  N2NC joins us about 00z and gave us
some run help Friday night.  Condx. to EU seemed best early in the evening, as
did the opening to the west coast.  By 0700z EU had largely disappeared and
working the 2nd tier west coast stations became quite difficult.  We tried to
pull out KL7RA for several hours....but a line noise source discovered after
the contest a mile away was just enough to make copy impossible.....next year
Rich!   No VK, ZL, or JA at sunrise.  Ended the first night still needing a
hand full of W6 mults, VE4, and NT.  About 100 EU stations were logged.  W2OB
came in to do the daylight shift till early afternoon (TNX Arnie!).

After our regular Saturday morning group breakfast, K2TW, W2CG and I returned
to work on the yet to be completed NE beverage project.  After repairing the
damage done by the hunters to one of the elements, we deployed the counterpoise
ground systems, termination resistors, and the phasing lines.  Working our way
through the woods and more notably navigating the thickets of very dense
'prickers' was time consuming....you could hardly go from point A to point B
without experiencing 'pain'.  We completed the project just before sundown, but
due to a wiring error discovered after EU sunrise, a full evaluation of
performance won't be completed until TBDC weekend.  Initial impressions - this
4 element deathray toward EU will be a keeper.

W2RQ and WW2Y joined us for the second evening of fun and frolic. Just after
sundown Saturday we discovered the SWR curve on the NE sloper had shifted down
the band....about 50 khz...and was now centered on 1785 khz.  It was too late
to go out and make changes in the marsh so during the entire 2nd evening we had
to stay low in the band.  Excursions of the mult. station above 1850 most often
caused the amplifier to trip out.  So we were competing with the equiv. of
having one arm tied behind our back.  After breakfast on Sunday morning K2TW
and I headed out to tower while KU2C stayed in the shack to run RF tests.  We
quickly discovered the RG8X feedline had somehow wrapped itself around the
lower half element for several feet.  If its not one thing......

Then to make things even more exciting, about 0100z Saturday evening we started
to see the HIGH RF error message on the Run Position K3.  This was definitely a
no no situation so we stopped operating to investigate.  After nearly an hour
of investigation we tracked the problem to an improperly seated connector on
the Acom 2S1 transfer switch.  We'd lost nearly an hour of critical Saturday
evening run time.  Sigh...

Conditions the second night seemed somewhat better to both EU and the west
coast.  The missing W6 multipliers were logged and a VE4 showed up at some
point.  The hoped for sunrise enhancement toward EU came and went....the
signals were never exceptionally loud but the volume increased....with plenty
of QSB....but the 4 ele EU beverage was dead quiet and the K3 in diversity mode
was yielding benefits at this point.

After EU sunrise, we kept hoping we'd have another shot at KL7RA but conditions
to Alaska were completely shut down .... the K had spiked to 4.  It was exciting
to have VK6DXI call in...but no other VK or ZL or JA stations were heard.  We
made our last QSO at 1123z

Congrats to the K1LZ, NR4M, and N0NI teams for their great efforts last
weekend, and of course thanks to everyone for the contacts. 

Merry Christmas everyone.....and see you all again during the Stew Perry later
this month.

73,

John, W2GD for the 160 TEAM


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