wpx KL7RA angles

Tue May 30 11:56:14 EDT 1995

KL7RA ALASKA  WPX CW 1995
s/o s/b 20 meters high power
Score  2,233,750   1439 q's x 625 pfx's
Icom 781  3-1000  5/4 @ 150ft/77ft 

Twenty was OKay for a change from the far north. I did well
considering the sun spot cycle. I wish we could move this test to
the end of April now that Dayton has shifted to May. After a hard
winter it's just too beautiful here in Alaska to sit in front of
radios this time of year.

The 20 meter band was busy with s-3 to s-7 signals 24 hours a day.
I had very poor rate most of the time often only 20 or 30 an hour.
We had a few good openings to each area where the signals were
"loud" and the rate would shoot up. Also had many hours of working
two areas at the same time. My log shows an intermix of US/Ja or
other combinations Eur/US, Eur/Ja etc. 

The conditions were such that a two antenna stack with upper lower
both switching was indispensable. Although the high antenna was
never better then the stack it was valuable to point towards the
second area coming in. At very slow rates its nice to spray two
areas and work "twice" as many even at 30 an hour. If the signal
was weak I would switch to just that antenna to get their call.
Also pointing north (Europe) was often a noisy path and I heard
better on the lower antenna even though the signals dropped when
switching from the stack. 

This contest I was able to prove something that has come up over
and over here on 20 and sometimes on 15. We run rate working loud
US stations until the sun moves to the west of us and Japan starts
calling and the US starts getting weak. In the past we would wait
for a time (like 3 Ja's in a row) then move the top beam to Japan.
But what happens is the US rate jumps way up so you move the top
beam back and (you guessed it) the rate drops and Ja's start
calling again. This contest I waited for the "event" and instead of
moving the top antenna I switched to lower antenna only. The Ja's
stopped calling but the US rate leaped up. The angle was wrong
using the stack to the US, but when I switch to high angle (low
antenna) I was loud now to the west coast which is where the rate
was coming from. 

I also have a layer of Europe that calls that are very weak. The
normal Europe contest stations are loud but these guys are s-0 and
will call you after every CQ. I always feel sorry for them because
its really hard to get their calls and they never seem to lose
hope. I think this is the layer East coast must work all night. The
low antenna was always weaker to this layer then the stack. 

This posting got a little long but I thought it might be
interesting to those of you thinking that it wasn't necessary to be
able to switch two antenna stacks during this part of the cycle.

Rich KL7RA IN ALASKA (I have to say that because most kl7's aren't)

>From KAY, LEONARD" <LKAY at pria.com  Tue May 30 16:57:00 1995
From: KAY, LEONARD" <LKAY at pria.com (KAY, LEONARD)
Date: Tue, 30 May 95 08:57:00 PDT
Subject: KB2R WPX score  (part-time)
Message-ID: <2FCB40D2 at pria.com>

         CQ WORLD WIDE WPX CONTEST  1995

 Call: KB2R                     Country:  United States (MA)
 Mode: CW                       Category: SOA, Low Power

  BAND     QSO   QSO PTS  PTS/Q PREFIXES

  160        0        0   0.0        0
   80        5       12   2.4        5
   40       80      334   4.2       69
   20      184      367   2.0      143
   15        0        0   0.0        0
   10        2        5   2.5        1
 --------------------------------------

 Totals    271      718   2.6      218  =   156,524 points

Club Affiliation: YANKEE CLIPPER CONTEST CLUB

Equipment: TS-820, CT8, dipoles

This represented about 12hrs of casual operation, in and around Memorial
Day weekend type stuff.

Let's just admit it. The bands were piss poor, and they're not gonna get
any better soon! :-)  I didn't get a run going once the whole weekend,
which is unusual even for my current setup. And my S&P rate was only
half its usual, for the most part because I ran out of people to work...

But I did work the OJ0, 4U0ITU, and HV4NAC on two bands,
and it was still FUN!!!

GO YCCC!

 --------------------------------------------------------------------
 Leonard Kay, KB2R            | "But we are not dealing with the
 PRI Automation, Inc.         |  normal world. We are chasing DX."
 Billerica, MA 01821          |    -- W9KNI, 'The Complete DXer'
 Internet: lkay at pria.com      |
 Editor, YCCC Scuttlebutt     | #include <disclaimer.h>
 --------------------------------------------------------------------

>From ERIC D HYATT <us004854 at interramp.com>  Tue May 30 16:38:56 1995
From: ERIC D HYATT <us004854 at interramp.com> (ERIC D HYATT)
Date: Tue, 30 May 95 08:38:56 PDT
Subject: 15m cw WPX Results
Message-ID: <Chameleon.4.01.2.950530093916.us004854@>

15m single-band, single-op, high power, assisted

Equipment: DX Engineering 6-el mono yagi @ 90 ft., side-mounted
           FT-1000D
           Alpha 87A
           DSP-9+ dsp filter
----------------------------------------------------------------

Score: 122 qsos x 102 pfx's = 36,108 points
       4.5 hours operating time
----------------------------------------------------------------

This was my first contest from the new qth here in south Georgia.
Quite a change from central Alabama a year ago.  Just getting
antenna farm back up.  QTH here is 10 mi from Florida line and 50 mi
from Gulf of Mexico, but 300 ft ASL.  

Stategy: just fool around and check out new qth, propagation, antenna, etc.
         With WWV at 66-67 can't expect a whole lot.  Check out the morning
         and evening openings to EU, AF, and VK/ZL.
         Main objective is search and pounce as many COUNTRIES as possible.
         (not pfx's), operate less than 8 hours (for more family time).

How it turned out:

I think the summary sentence should be: Latitude had more effect on prop than
antennas.  Was quite pleased with propagation down here considering the low
solar flux.  Friday nite, the band seemed fairly busy w/ VK/ZL, FK, 3D2, etc.
Surprised to see an opening to DU and YB btween 0200-0300Z with weak sigs
(S-0), w/ QSB, short path (330 degs), but very workable...the DSP helped.
No JA though..guess they had antennas pointed south.  Band closed here about
0400Z, or no activity.

Saturday was better than Sunday here.  Lotsa eu sigs, strong & weak, a little
skewed to the east..60-70 degs instead of 30-45.  Surprised again to hear
Ukraine and some northern eu's, along with J28, HZ, 5H3, 5Z4, ZS, 9Q, 9X, S9,
etc. in Africa.  Noticed hardly any NA calling or hearing these stations.
Noticed eu's mostly working Africa or each other on N-S path.  DSP helped on
some deep fades.  Worked eu on & off here until 1830z.  Not so common eu's were
4U0, HV, IH9 (AF-33).  SA, VK/ZL, ZS always strong on trans-equatorial path.
Noticed the familiar phenomenon, the further north, the less the activity...
few SM, G, OH, etc.  East Africans surprised to hear NA station.
WC4E and N4WW, both in FLA, seemed to be doing equally as well.  I could 
hear 95% of what N4WW was working on the morning eu runs.  

Managed to S&P 75 countries in 4 hours.

Being further south and east definitely helps during sunspot mins.
DSP really proved its worth on deep fades and atmospherics.
QTH here very quiet from power line and man-made noise, however.
6-el mono great ant, but need two of 'em on separate rotors.

-------------------------------------
ERIC D HYATT- WB4QNP
              Bainbridge, GA.
Grid Square:  EM70ru

E-mail: us004854 at interramp.com (ERIC D HYATT)

******************************************************
Raise new questions, explore new possibilities,
Regard old problems from a new angle!-- A. Einstein 
******************************************************

------------------------------------------------------