KR0Y IARU Part Time

[JSTEINMAN at aol.com]

Wow.
Great conditions for this time of the cycle. 
IARU has always been one of my favorite contests. You don't need a huge
signal to get on and run guys. And everyone that calls is worth points. 24
hour format is nice too....

Unfortunately I only go to put in about 10 hours due to babysitting duty. I
did pick up some new techniques this weekend, such as how to hold a pacifier
in my daughters mouth with my left hand while operating the
radio/keyer/keyboard with my right hand.

742 x 139 = 390K. CW only.

FT1000 and Alpha 78 at 500W out
KT34A/402CD at 60'
80M sloper
160 shunt fed tower.

Eric, NM5M, operated WX0B CW only to the tune of some 830K.

73
Jeff  KR0Y
jsteinman at aol.com

>From Thomas J. Wall" <0006130613 at mcimail.com  Mon Jul 10 01:03:00 1995
From: Thomas J. Wall" <0006130613 at mcimail.com (Thomas J. Wall)
Date: Sun, 9 Jul 95 19:03 EST
Subject: Comments on Alpha 87A
Message-ID: <70950710000307/0006130613DC1EM at MCIMAIL.COM>

Hi all...I'm in the market for an amplifier and would like to hear the pros
and cons of the 87A, especially regarding PIN diode failures and standby
trip-out. How sensitive to SWR are the protection circuits? Anyone having
problems using it with an IC-781 in contests?

Tnx es 73 de Tom K2TW at mcimail.com



>From De Syam <syam at Glue.umd.edu>  Mon Jul 10 02:34:33 1995
From: De Syam <syam at Glue.umd.edu> (De Syam)
Date: Sun, 9 Jul 1995 21:34:33 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: IARU HF Contest 1995: K3ZO results and comments
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950709212313.7867A-100000 at mocha.eng.umd.edu>

 
Herewith the K3ZO line score, Single-Operator/All-Band, CW Only
  Time used: Close to 24 hours -- a few brief time outs here and  
  there for pit stops and fridge raids
 
  BAND      QSOs     Points     Mults      Antenna   
 _______________________________________________________
 
  160CW        5          5       5    Half-sloper off 140' tower 
   80CW      102        326      17    3-el KLM Yagi @ 140'
   40CW      493       1841      40    3-el Telrex Yagi @ 94'
   20CW      729       2949      55    6-el Telrex Yagi @ 150'
                                       4-el W6PU Quad @ 78'
   15CW      316       1222      33    4-el W6PU Quad @ 78'
   10CW       26         50       7    4-el W6PU Quad @ 78'
 _______________________________________________________
 
 Totals     1671       6393     157      
 
    Final Score = 1,003,701 points.

Rig: TS830S + Titan 425; Modified R4C auxiliary receiver.
 
The suspense in the final moments kept me wide awake as I was
looking to see if I would break the magic million mark.
 
I have always done the mixed mode in this one in previous years,
but since lightning took out the relays on my 80 meter Yagi a few
weeks ago, effectively making it a CW-only antenna for the time
being, I decided to go CW-only this year.  Looking at last year's
results, it seemed that the best competition was in the CW-only
category anyway.
 
The dilemma between operating this contest and operating on VHF
which I described in an earlier message turned out to be painfully
true in this case.  Six meters opened to Europe an hour before the
contest started and I had to break off a beautiful run of Europeans
at 1156Z in order to get ready.  They were calling me knee-deep!
 
Even though I was well aware that ten meters was wide open to
Europe at the beginning of the contest I made a bonehead decision
and decided to start the contest on 20 beaming Asia.  I was basing
my decision primarily on how the band had acted the previous day,
when 10 meters peaked at around 2200Z.  Of course by the time I got
to ten I barely managed to work OM5HQ and there were no others in
sight; ten didn't re-open to Europe in the afternoon; and the early
morning Sunday yielded exactly two Europeans -- CT1BOH and YT50BB.
 
Which means that the maxim: "If propagation provides unusual
and unexpected opportunities, tear up your advance operating plan
and take full advantage of what the bands are giving you" should
have been followed.  Although my first three hours were each 100+,
I lost what QSO's and multipliers I could have had by beginning on
10, and things on 20 the fourth and fifth hours might have been a
little more brisk if it had been a virgin band for me at that
moment.  There was, as it turned out, no need to start the contest
into Asia on 20;  The JA's were there all night anyhow, and from
0900-1100Z even the weakest JA could be copied easily.
 
I was fortunate this weekend in that we had a drenching rain Friday
which cleared away my usual nemesis, line noise.  It was a pleasure
to operate virtually noise-free bands the whole weekend.
 
Here are my band-by-band observations:
 
160:  My only brief foray to this band happened after S50HQ told me
they were on the band at that moment and asked me to QSY.  It seems
to frequently be the case that if conditions are good on the high
bands they are good on the low bands as well, particularly near
sunspot minimums when absorption is low everywhere if the K-index
falls.  At any rate, I had no trouble finding S50HQ in the
summertime QRN and found DA0HQ and OM5HQ as well.   Nobody else was
calling when I called them and they all came right back.  
 
80:  I had not expected to try to run Europeans on this band but
just go around calling them, but after about the fourth station I
worked EU1MM moved slightly higher than the station I worked and
started calling me and I tuned right into him.  When I finished
with him all hell broke loose and for a few minutes the rate meter
was peaking over 100 and it was all Europeans!  There was static,
particularly later in the evening, but signals from Europe were
quite good.  Nothing much to the west and south, however.  
 
40:  The band conditions were excellent and I started here at 2200
and began running Europeans immediately.  A few UA9's and a UN
called through in the early minutes.  Admiral Scotty, A92Q, had an
enormous signal.  As has been the case recently, at about 0025 the
quietness of the band was upset to some extent by broadband hash as
Radio Vatican signed on at 7305 KHz, and the hash remained until
just after 0400 when they signed off.  In the early hours it was
not too bad, but after a while it got worse.  It probably cost me
about 15 contacts in all.  (Yes, the problem is being worked on
with an Italian amateur serving as a liaison with the Radio Vatican
engineering staff.  If you wish to make a report on the problem,
please be scientific and detailed about it, as a simple "please
clean up your dirty transmitter" type complaint will probably get
no more attention than it deserves.  Remember how YOU feel when the
neighbors complain about your RFI and act accordingly.)  High QRN
made the Asian opening difficult but one of my runs included two
JA's amongst the W/VE's and that's all I needed for that
multiplier.
 
20: What can I say?  Open full time to almost everywhere.  Who says
that summertime is the dog days?  As long as the K index stays
low...
 
15:  Very good to Europe in the early hours Saturday and it opened
by 0930Z on Sunday again to Europe.  As WB0O has already mentioned,
it was open from here to Asia also.  I was distracted by good 40
meter conditions at the same time but did manage to work RW0A and
UA0KCL.
 
10: See opening comments!
 
One parting thought:  Might it be true that during low sunspot
years HF conditions are actually better in June/July (in the
Northern Hemisphere) with the widespread presence of Sporadic E
than they are in the October/November and February/March
timeframes?  Even in high sunspot years summer conditions can be
very interesting.  In this contest in 1989 I opened by running JA's
on 10 long-path (beaming SE) for the first two hours!
 
                                      Very 73,
 
                                    Fred Laun, K3ZO