[3830] BARTG 75 VA7ST Single Op HP

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BARTG Sprint 75 - April

Call: VA7ST
Operator(s): VA7ST
Station: VA7ST

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: BC
Operating Time (hrs): 1

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
   80:    
   40:    
   20:  36
   15:   2
   10:    
------------
Total:  38  Mults = 19  Continents = 2  Total Score = 1,444

Club: Orca DX and Contest Club

Comments:

Just one hour in the chair during the four-hour contest window. The first 30
minutes of on-time was low power, because my SB-221 amp has been dead for the
past week. 

Seeing how poor conditions were, and how slow rate was with low power, I
decided to take some time off to repair the amp (actually, I made the repairs
Saturday night but still needed to install a pair of 1978-production Eimac
3-500Z tubes that haven't been in use since 2009. I had planned to do this
before BARTG started, but ran out of time before the local 10 a.m. start.

Powering on after making repairs, and with unknown tube status, is always a
harrowing experience for me and it took me a good 10 minutes of anxious
hand-wringing before I could summon up the courage to flip the power switch.
When I opened my eyes, the meters and tubes were lit up. There were no sparky
events, just the gentle hum of the fan. Triumph over technology!

Quickly got back on the air -- called a few stations, but the amp wasn't making
any power. Just about 50 watts -- which was curiously the same as my tranceiver
was putting into the amplifier. Hmmm. 

Oh, and the plate current meter showed no plate current. I figured I must have
missed a failed component in the repairs. And then the penny dropped (takes me
a while)... the T/R relay wasn't making the nice little thump when I
transmitted. In my haste to get back to 75 RTTY, I had inserted the antenna
relay plug into the ALC jack. 

Made the switch on the back of the amp, turned it on again, and saw that a pair
of 1978 Eimac tubes were at least as strong as the pair of 1995 tubes I had
taken out earlier in the week (to be checked and installed in a refurbished
SB221 I'm working on as a summer project).

Turned the yagi to Europe (had made no Qs outside NA with low power) and worked
several new EU mults in the few minutes before the contest ended.

Hope the amp still works by the time WPX CW rolls around on May 28. I'll be
trying it out on DX and an occasional contest between now and then.

Thanks for the Qs and to BARTG for such a snappy RTTY contest.

-- Bud VA7ST


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