[3830] ARRL 10 ED5T(@EA5ELT) M/S HP

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                    ARRL 10-Meter Contest

Call: ED5T
Operator(s): EA5KV EA5ON
Station: EA5ELT

Class: M/S HP
QTH: Torrent
Operating Time (hrs): 

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
   CW:  353    68
  SSB:  521   115
-------------------
Total:  874   183  Total Score = 449,082

Club: Torrent Contest Club

Comments:

Once again, problematic dates to try to staff a full-blown 10m multi-single,
just 2 weeks after CQWW CW and 10 days before Christmas. On Saturday, nobody
was available even for a short stint. On Sunday however both Victor EA5KV and
myself EA5ON rolled up to the Torrent Contest Club at 7am local after a short
sleep. It took us about an hour to roll out the cables to the 10m stack, swap
out the AL1200 for the Acom 1000, update N1MM, and adjust the audio on the
FT1000 for the new headset. 

Since we had missed all Saturday, there was obviously no way we were going to
win anything, so we settled down with the aim of having a good time and
enjoying whatever pileup or DX that might come our way. Things were a bit slow
to start with so we did a bit of s+p and mult hunting until we managed to get a
bit of a run going. Strange paths , lots of backscatter, all making for
interesting contacts. We hadn’t really talked about what modes we were going
to do but seeing the business wasn’t that brisk on phone we took a foray down
onto CW and soon managed to a get a more decent rate going. I am not much of a
CW man so Vic manned the station while I listened in on the spare set of cans
and got some practice in. The band opened fine to the states and we managed
some nice runs, alternating modes, until just after nightfall it seemed like
someone had pulled the plug. So, we pulled up all the wiring again, switched
the amps back, and even managed to get home in time for dinner.

Although we’d used the stack in CQWW SSB, this was a great opportunity for us
to try it out compared to the Optibeam OB11-3. The stack consists of a 5 ele
yagi at 21’ fixed towards USA plus an indentical rotatable yagi at 45’. The
Optibeam is at approx. 75’. The towers are approx. 130’ apart, at the top of
a ridge. 

One of the first conclusions we came to is that the stack is noticeably
quieter. No real surprise in theory but certainly really nice when condx get a
bit weak. In fact there were moments when switching between the stack and the
optibeam on a clear frequency when I wondered if the relay on the sixpak was
playing up again. As for performance, we ratified what we’d found in CQWW,
that the antenna at 21’ is an excellent performer to the states. Whether top
is better than bottom or vice versa depends on the incoming wave angle at any
given moment, hence the reason for using them phased. There didn’t seem to be
any time when the Optibeam was better than the stack on that path. When the
optibeam is usually better is towards the south, where the ground is more
level, but not a great difference.

I recently had a long conversation with Woody WW1WW about 10m beams and his
experience is that on this particular band the incoming angles vary enormously,
more than on any other band, and that’s why at his station they have more
antennas at different heights than on any other band. However terrain matters!
In another recent conversation with Rick K3OO, he installed a 7 element yagi at
45’ and compared with a 5 over 5 stack on a 100’ tower. The 7 element at
45’ is often the better performer. It seems therefore that higher is not
always better and an investment in time taken to study a contest location using
HFTA may avoid in some cases $$$ and heartache in putting up big towers which
may not always be optimum. 

We also ratified in this contest the usefulness of being able to beam in two
directions at once, plus the option of using a third antenna if needed. The
Optibeam continues to be a vital part of our contest station and we have no
plans to replace it any time soon. 

Some big scores posted already, congrats in MS to our friends at ED1R, and in
SO to EA7KW for a good job well done. 

Rig: FT1000MP MkV Field
Amp: Acom 1000, 1kW
Antennas: 5 over 5 homebrew, plus OB11-3 tribander
Software: N1MM


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