NI8L 160M Score

[NI8L at aol.com]

                    ARRL 160 METER CONTEST -- 1994


      Call: NI8L                     Country:  United States
      Mode: CW                       Category: Single Operator

               QSO   QSO PTS  PTS/QSO    SECTIONS  COUNTRIES


     Totals   1062    2187     2.06         72         16    =   192,456

TS940, Titan Amp, Inverted vee @ 110, no beverages

This was the first semi-serious contest from the new QTH.  Put the antenna
up the day before the contest.  Really enjoyed Friday night, Saturday was 
like SS Sunday afternoon.  Thanks to all that worked me.  See you next year
with bigger and better stuff!

73's...Scott

>From H. Ward Silver" <hwardsil at seattleu.edu  Wed Dec  7 01:36:43 1994
From: H. Ward Silver" <hwardsil at seattleu.edu (H. Ward Silver)
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 17:36:43 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Holiday Decorations
Message-ID: <Pine.3.07.9412061743.D13879-9100000 at bach.seattleu.edu>


Hey, all you towerphiles out there!  What kind of interesting things to
you do with those skyhooks during the holidaze?  I've got a neat "drooping
teepee" of little, white lights on one tower that makes a swell tree-like
apparition about 50' high.  The second tower is new this year and I'm
going to make a 40' red-and-white candy cane with a 6' 1x2 extension off
the side, wrapping alternating strings of lights around the tower.

Drop me a note and I'll summarize...

73, Ward N0AX



>From Steve Sample <aa9ax at iglou.com>  Wed Dec  7 01:39:08 1994
From: Steve Sample <aa9ax at iglou.com> (Steve Sample)
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 20:39:08 -0500 (EST)
Subject: ARRL 160 SCORE
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91.941206201726.22946A-100000 at iglou>


Single Op Low Power Score
831 Q's X 72 Sections & 5 Countries = 129,129

This was my third year in a row for the ARRL 160.  I try to gauge my 
success by looking at last year's results (except W3UM last year-that was 
scary!).  The past two years had scores good enuf to win, but there is 
always two or three people with the same idea who sneak up on you when 
you're not looking and leave you in third or fourth place.  This year, 
I'm not wondering if I got beat, I'm just wondering WHO DID IT!!!

Notes:  

     Equipment:  IC-781 to 650 foot wire loop up about 50 feet (fed with 
1/4 wave matching section into ten feet of 50 ohm coax into MT3000A tuner.
The loop plays GREAT in the mainland, but low height and high radiation 
angle leave me out in the cold for all but ez DX. (Will autotune since is 
close to resonance, but I finally got tired of frying the 781's tuner 
using  one wire on a billion frequencies).  Also use one unterminated 
beverage  running through the woods over hill and dale about 530 feet.

     Operating:  It gets too long the second day when you are a basic low 
power station.  Rates of 6 and 8 per hour for hours and hours and hours 
makes for a grueling test.  Grueling is an understatement.

     Fun:  Great rates first day.  Tremenduous big, clean sigs make 160 a 
real pleasure.  Great operators are in abundance.  My traditional few rag 
chews with the Spike and Bob team (the Flying Wedge East) at W3GH.  Their 
picture is hanging on my shack wall and a reminder of the fun we have in 
Dayton every year with other contesters.

Sorry if I got a little crazy a few times for a minute or so.  That was a 
crazed, sleep-deprived, hungry person in the twilight zone looking for a 
tiny morsel in a wasteland of dupes.  Missed NE (heard N0HA LOUD Sunday 
morning, but he disappeared into the quiet fog and I never found him again).

P.S.  There are lots of scores being posted on the Reflector, but half of 
them forget to state their class/power.

73 from a Hoosier in the Kentucky Contest Group--- Steve/AA9AX
 

>From H. Ward Silver" <hwardsil at seattleu.edu  Wed Dec  7 01:40:46 1994
From: H. Ward Silver" <hwardsil at seattleu.edu (H. Ward Silver)
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 17:40:46 -0800 (PST)
Subject: conditioning review
Message-ID: <Pine.3.07.9412061746.E13879-9100000 at bach.seattleu.edu>


Last call for your pre-contest conditioning tips!  I've only gotten a few,
so far, maybe nobody wants to give up those trade secrets?  We've touched
on extra sleep (big surprise), caffeine, junk food, Twinkies, etc.  What
is it that you do to get ready for the Big Ones?

Send replies direct to yours truly!

73, Ward N0AX



>From Morao Esteban <z801183a at bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us>  Wed Dec  7 01:52:13 1994
From: Morao Esteban <z801183a at bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us> (Morao Esteban)
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 20:52:13 -0500 (EST)
Subject: C6 QSL
Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9412062005.A4510-0100000 at bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us>

Hi,
I will like to rectified the following information, I made a Callsing
mistake in the last one,
Sorry about That.

"Kappy WA4WTG is the QSL manager for C6AHX ( CQ WW CW '94), WS4E, C6AHY,
and V73Y. Please send QSL cards direct to his Callbook Address. He also 
will like to remind that the U.S. postage will increase from 29 cents to 
32 cents in January '95, so please, include de proper postage. He will 
try to get the QSL form C6AHX as soon as posible."

Please feel free to pass this information,

73 from Sunny South Florida,

Steve W4/YV5DTA
z801183a at bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us





>From Joel Magid <76450.2313 at compuserve.com>  Wed Dec  7 02:36:38 1994
From: Joel Magid <76450.2313 at compuserve.com> (Joel Magid)
Date: 06 Dec 94 21:36:38 EST
Subject: VP2Mxx during CQ WW CW
Message-ID: <941207023638_76450.2313_CHL83-1 at CompuServe.COM>



	Does anyone know of any VP2M stations that were in the 
	CQ WW CW  1994.

	Joel WU1F

>From ni6t at ix.netcom.com (Garry Shapiro)  Wed Dec  7 02:47:09 1994
From: ni6t at ix.netcom.com (Garry Shapiro) (Garry Shapiro)
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 18:47:09 -0800
Subject: Terminating Beverages In Shack
Message-ID: <199412070247.SAA04625 at ix2.ix.netcom.com>

You wrote: 

>
>Garry,
>
>I didn't know you had 2, 2-wire beverages. So do I, I just put mine
>up this fall. One pair goes NE/SW (Eu/ZL) the other NW/SE (JA/Asia LP).
>
>I switch directions at the feedpoint with relays. I DO NOT terminate
>the unused port. Have noticed NO DEGREDATION. The F/B is totally
>awesome. Like 6-7 S-units at 3.8Mhz, simalarily on 40. Small caveat,
>though, this holds true for a given arrival angle. All in all,
>its very uselful on 80 & 40. A bit short on 160, but it allowed
>me to work 49 DX & 600 Q overall 160 this weekend.
>
>Maybe I should try terminating the unused port. Its a snap to do,
>even when dark, which it is now after 5PM when I get home.
>
>I'm intrigued. Please relate your experiences with 2-wire bvgs.
>
>Oh, yes, 2 things:
>1) Thanx for the QSO this weekend, you were one of the power
>houses from 6-land.
>
>2) My 2-wire jobbers are each 492' long. This is ~ multiple of
>1/2 wave, as per Misek's recommendation. They're cut for
>3.8Mhz (measured VF w/new Autek RF-1. Thats how I got 492').
>At 3.5Mhz I notice some degradation in F/B. Length should be
>abt 535' for 3.5Mhz w/a VF=0.935.
>
>				73,
>					Walt - K2WK
1. Powerhouse? Amazing. The 160 xmit antenna is bent-end dipole with the 
(off-)center pulled up to about 130 feet to a sidearm off a single Rohn 
25 section clamped to the top of a redwood tree. The Rohn supports a 
Force 12 DXer and 30m dipole and a VHF collinear. I call the 160 antenna 
a "perverted vee" and it is selected from the same remote coax switch as 
the Force 12's. About 50 feet is bent on each end. Like any dipole up 
<1/4 wave, most of the radiation is at high angles, so it cooks 
domestically. I was running about 900W. 

I worked PY0FF for QSO #1 but that was the high water mark right there. 
I weakly heard WP4IIW for a while but no other Caribbean or Central or 
South America. Naturally, Alaska, Hawaii and Japan were workable here-I 
had lots of those- but that was it. Perhaps if I had used packet I might 
have had a line on the VP2, V7, 4U1UN, A35RK, etc. No Europe here, of 
course.

The east coast scores just blow me away! Guys with >1000 QSO's. Guys 
with 29 or 42 countries! When I find one like mine (89K) the poster 
operated for 3 to 5 hours--and I put in about 23 to make 565 Q's!!

It's a different world out here, Walt! Not as extreme as KL7RA's, but 
definitely down the pecking order from a single-hop to Europe.

2. The Beverages. An interesting story. About 4 years ago, I was 
languishing at about 60 countries on 80m--160 was not even a glimmer of 
a possibility--and whining about never making it to 100 from the bottom 
of a canyon. Bob,KN6J, who had just made his 160m DXCC (no mean feat 
from out here) said "put in Beverages. You will be amazed." I,of course, 
had all these well-reasoned excuses for NOT having Beverages--steep 
canyon slope, heavy forest (ON4UN himself said forests did not cut it), 
modest maximum length (<<300 feet). And Bob was up on the ridge,etc. He 
persisted, and I decided to try--maybe just to prove him wrong. I went 
to a flea market and bought large spools of hookup wire. A friend came 
up and asked what was in the bag. "Beverage antennas," I said. He looked 
in the bag and said "Oh, some assembly required."

Installing them was a trip. The undergrowth (blackberries and poison 
oak) was so thick and the terrain so convoluted in this northern rain 
forest that I got lost on my own small 1.5A and the initial layouts 
curved, like the path taken by a person who is lost. I was. It was 
impossible to achieve NW/SE and NE/SW and I settled for the cardinal 
points. I decided to switch in the shack and bought a 1000 ft spool of 
RG58. I installed the wires at 6':low enough to reach to repair (good 
thinking) and high enough not to garrote passing children and animals. 
Installing posts (2"x2") of my own redwood, hanging off trees, and using 
insulators of split PVC, I got lengths (estimated) of maybe 275'-about 1 
wavelength on 80.

I was impressed by the results. Not as dramatic as yours, but more than 
I expected: demonstrable F/B, but--more importantly--just-copiable 
signals where there had been just-uncopiable signals. I hit 100 
countries within about 2 months. I am at 224 now. Last season (9/15 to 
4/15 as defined by K0CS in the Lowband Monitor) I worked 148. KN6J was 
definitely right, and I now pass that same advice on to anyone with more 
than a suburban back yard. I had the pleasure of discussing these 
scraggly and oft-wounded beasts with ON4UN at Dayton this year.

The benefit is clearly on longhaul signals. With closer (high 
angle) stuff, the TX antenna wins.

Performance on 160--where they are only a halfwave--is rather less 
dramatic and I am now reluctantly steeling myself to three tasks: 
rebuilding them sturdily, with steel wire and solid mountings, 
reorienting them to the optimum directions, and bootlegging at least one 
across the road onto neighboring, unoccupied property: the NI6T Stealth 
Beverage.

The big negative has been the flimsy hookup wire in a environment that 
rains large pieces of wood and grows things into the wires. The dark 
side of wire antennas in a rainforest is the continuous vigilance and 
maintenance required. A wet week in April can bury a Beverage in 
blackberry vines--and one hears the difference immediately.  I have been 
out in the dark in pouring rain at the beginning or middle of contests 
digging one end of one Bev out of a mudslide, or repairing breaks. A 
Radioshack miner's lamp is essential equipment. I am sure you can figure 
what my wife thinks of such behavior.

WRT to the termination question that started this thread, without any 
thoughtful analysis it seems that your careful choice of length may 
indeed be obviating the lack of cancellation at certain frequencies, but 
the Bevs are inherently wideband and you should not be seeing noticeable 
changes across such a small percentage BW change. This suggests you 
should try terminating the other port, therby making the antenna a 
travelling wave--rather than a standing wave---structure it is supposed 
to be.

If you do that, lemme know what you determine.

73 de Garry