[3830] CQ160 CW W0RIC(W4IX) Single Op HP

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                    CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW - 2020

Call: W0RIC
Operator(s): W4IX
Station: W0RIC

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: AZ
Operating Time (hrs): 30

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 793  State/Prov = 56  Countries = 43  Total Score = 218,889

Club: Arizona Outlaws Contest Club

Comments:

Due to a busy work schedule, I wasn't sure I was going to operate in this one.
When things cleared up, I asked Rick if all was ok. He was having arcing issues
on the Vertical and High SWR. He resolved the issue we thought (more later). I
had obtained an SAL-12 from my dad, K4MM in Florida and thought " This
would be perfect at W0RIC " brought it to Arizona, sent the Preamp out for
repair. Got it back week of the contest. So I arrived at Rick's and we started
putting up the SAL-12. Went up with no issues 1/2 hr. before the start. Hooked
it up to the radio and fired it up and my jaw dropped. Had a severe issue with a
strong Harmonic peaking at 1790 and had birdies every 10hz throughout the band.
This was disappointing but I played around with a for a bit and figured out that
it seemed to work in the Bi Direction mode pretty good. Also noticed we had alot
of strong birdies on the Vertical also but knew most of them would go away after
dark.So started the contest on time and just limped along until the sun went
down and the band started filling up. Started hearing Europeans pretty early for
the West Coast and the SAL was doing a great job. I couldn't believe the
directivity we had. I started calling alot of strong Europeans but they mostly
cq'd in my face. I was able to snag one here and there but spent alot of time
trying. So started running and things were really slow. Limped along throughout
the night between s&ping and running. Started a nice run at midnight local
time and kept it going until around 6 AM when all of a sudden the SWR shot up
super high, lots of noise on the screen and weak signals. We waited until the
sun came up to check things out and after some time troubleshooting we
determined we fried the Screwdriver antenna with the shunt feed. Thinking the
contest was over at that point, Rick reached out to Ron, NI7J, able and
refurbish the entire antenna. Added some new hardware and cleaned things up (
found alot of arc's and melted plastic throughout the aho is the owner of the
Scorpion Antenna Company, he told us to bring it over to him and over the next 4
hours he proceeded to completely disassemble and rebuilt the antenna). So we
rushed home and got the antenna back on the Vertical and crossed our fingers.
Everything worked fine. Started back at around 3:00 just checking things out
while running. Things were looking so much better on the band with just a few
normal birdies. A good 1 hour before sunset I already had 2 new European mults
in the log. The Europeans kept popping out of the noise and I was having great
luck snagging them. Started the 2nd day with 500Q's 43 States/Provinces and 19
DX. So by looking at the results here now, I think the antenna issue was
resolved and worked well. Ended up with Just under 800Q's, 56 States/Provinces
and 43 countries, which is a new record for this station on 160 meters. Kudos to
Ron for the fantastic and speedy service...Big Thanks to Rick & Kim for
having me over to play radio and keeping me well nourished..John W4IX


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