[3830] ARRL 160 W3HKK SO Unlimited HP

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Sun Dec 2 17:33:43 EST 2018


                    ARRL 160-Meter Contest

Call: W3HKK
Operator(s): W3HKK
Station: W3HKK

Class: SO Unlimited HP
QTH: CENTRAL OHIO
Operating Time (hrs): 15.3

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 731  Sections = 99  Countries = 26  Total Score = 155,034

Club: Mad River Radio Club

Comments:

Total Hours:  15.3 
Total Q's:    731 
Sections:      99 
DX:            37 Q's in 26 Countries 
VE's:          53 
Headaches:      8 
SO-HP - Ants: Qtr wave Inv-L ( 52 ft vertical, the rest  sloping East down to 20

ft at the end;  38x100 ft  radials; SAL-30 RX antenna that made a big  
difference. 
This was   a contest of possibilities- what might have beens.   Big sigs from 
Europe popped thru the high QRN regularly.  Lots of sigs in noise that  averaged

between S9 and +15/9.  But rare December T-storms arrived   during the contest,

on the heels of S-zero noise for the prior two weeks, to quash those hopes.   
 
Got a late start Fri when the basement sump pump stopped operating.  Refilled 
the back up battery ( low level light was on) and   banged on the main pump 
float switch  enough to get it working again. Reset the alarms.  Reached the 
shack at 5:30 to find the band well-populated with good signals but the noise 
level had risen from S-0 to S-5.  CQing around 1852 was drawing a slow but 
steady stream of Euros   by   6pm, but the noise was rising ever higher.  Still,

things were  great until the noise swallowed up the sigs and gave me a headache,

so I pulled the plug at 8pm.  I checked  in at 2 hr intervals all night long  
and dealt with the  high QRN as best I could, basically working the strong ones.
 
Had a nice pre-sunrise run from 7-8am then hit the sack at 8am Sat.   
 
By Sat evening the  noise was worse than on Fri, so I  slept instead of 
operating.  Couldnt resist so at 11pm got back in and went for 3 hrs, with QSOs 

bouncing from W6, W7, to Europe, to  OR, MT, NV, back to Europe, and all around

the country.  Napped from 3am til 6am, and resumed.  Worked KH6, the entire West

Coast, plus a handful of  XE, Caribb,  and short skip sigs, but the rate was 
down from a peak of 53/hr Sat to only 28/hr Sun at sunrise.   QRN was  lower but

still limiting on weak signal copy. 
 
So the Might Have Beens will have to wait til next year.  Propagation-wise, this

could have been a 1000 QSO contest for me had the  QRN been at the low levels we

had  leading up to the contest.  And the Euro totals could have been double, or

more if I could copy more than the strong ones.   There is always hope for the 
future. 
 
PS  My improvements this past Fall seemed to have helped.  Reconnected all the 
old radials and added 6 more to give 38 radials.  The SWR stopped rising  as I 
added the final   four, always a good sign.  Then I adjusted the coke bottle 
shunt inductor to  give a 1:1 swr at 1825 khz.  And finally added an UN-UN to 
the end of the coax/antenna junction. 
The  RG-6 on the SAL had  exhibited  intermittant loss of  F/B so I replaced the

twist on catv connectors  at the outdoor splice, with watertight DXE connectors

using their "tool" - which seemed to solve that problem.  Flipping the

8-direction SAL 30 controller often produced big changes in the rcvd signals.  
Unfortunately, when the skip was bouncing between Eu/W1/VE and the West Coast, I

had to do a lot of flipping. But it kept me awake, and  Sigs would go from 
marginal to Q5. 
 
PPS  Never had a Beverage.  Room for a  500 footer is  marginal so will try an 
RBOG if Santa  comes through for me, to see if that helps with the QRN and weak

signal copy.  It's an all RG-6 antenna and feed system, so I can   add the 
fittings indoors, and then uncoil it onto the  frozen tundra.


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