YAESU FT-980
ehayes at VNET.IBM.COM
ehayes at VNET.IBM.COM
Tue Feb 20 06:53:20 EST 1996
I have a chance to purchase one of these radios and upgrade(?) my
station. I am currently using an IC 737 with one 500 Hz cw filter.
The only problem is...I can't seem to find any postings at KA9FOX
concerning the pro's and con's of this rig. I am told by the owner
it is a great contest rig but since he isn't in to that facet of the
hobby he wants to sell it. Also, he is asking $875, is that reasonable?
The owner also told me that he had sent it to the repair center to have
it checked over within the last few months. I do know this person (not well)
so I tend to believe his statements, I just need some advice from those
of you that might have used the 980 for contesting and dxing.
Thanks,
Wayne KC5DVT ehayes at vnet.ibm.com
>From Jimmy R. Floyd" <floydjr at Interpath.com Tue Feb 20 14:31:14 1996
From: Jimmy R. Floyd" <floydjr at Interpath.com (Jimmy R. Floyd)
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 1996 10:31:14 -0400
Subject: ARRL CW DX Contest 96 Scores II
Message-ID: <199602201535.KAA10988 at mail-hub.interpath.net>
ARRL DX CW CONTEST 1996
RAW SCORES
Compiled by
WA4ZXA
Posting Date: 02/20/96
CALL HRS SCORE QSO'S PTS DX
__________________________________________________________________________
QRP
ZF2OP (K3DI) 475,000 983 161
KA1CZF 109,224 269 888 123
K5LID 103,000 275 126
NM1Q 6 30,222 138 414 73
WA3NNA 7,869 71 43
VE7CQK 4,050 50 150 27
SO/HP/AB
VP2EWW (AA7VP) 3,090,000 3640 283
6Y5XX 30 2,962,965 3727 11181 265
VP5JP (K8JP) 2,800,000 3468 275
N6BV 2,430,000 2586 314
NX1H 2,322,000 2582 300
K3ZO 2,300,000 2412 315
KT3Y 2,100,000 2390 291
K4PQL 1,577,238 1899 5694 277
W9RE 1,560,000 1914 273
N2IC/0 1,260,000 1569 268
KQ2M 1,200,000 1714 243
K3MD 938,520 1329 237
WB5VZL 770,000 1121 230
W4ZYT 23 479,700 820 2460 195
K7FR 239,268 513 1524 157
W3GOI 227,760 589 1752 130
NN7L 223,080 440 169
VE7IN 105,600 353 1056 100
KN6DV (SM3SGP) 104,895 333 999 105
N8AAT 95,784 307 921 104
S57AD 30,240 240 720 42
KB5WWA 926 207
SO/LP/AB
FS5PL (WX9E) 3,100,000 3861 269
V47NZ (N0BSH) 1,998,000 3070 217
W2UP 874,380 1121 3362 260
AC1O/4 854,700 1100 259
N4ZR 573,120 960 2880 199
WA2RSQ 543,090 842 215
WD4AHZ 336,000 560 1680 200
WR3O 322,368 590 1752 184
KJ6HO 36 217,350 483 1449 150
K09Y 10 207,612 474 1422 146
K9MMS 136,000 350 132
AA0SQ 117,120 320 960 122
W0HSC (KB0IHM) 25,536 112 336 76
WD5N 7,050 50 47
SO/HP/ASSISTED
K1NG 2,815,000 2406 391
K3WW 2,657,655 2301 385
W9RE 1,589,703 1914 5739 277
K2SX 1,400,000 1575 291
N3RR 990,036 1069 3204 309
K3SA 23 650,724 1031 211
WE9V (KS9K) 633,255 815 2445 259
KC7V 601,128 1037 3036 198
W1IHN 17 534,312 984 2952 181
N1CC 22 528,432 872 202
NN7L 22 486,000 1000 162
N6ZZ 444,048 646 1914 232
WN6K 223,110 556 134
K5NA 157,000
S56A 118,575 474 1395 85
SO/LP/ASSISTED
N0AX 293,046 580 1734 169
N9WHG 34,560 129 384 90
KG8PE 18,786 101 62
KB8PK 18,600 100 62
SINGLE BAND
160M
WB9Z 23,373 147 53
VE7SBO 1,632 36 102 16
80M
W9XT 127,189 159 477 57
N8RR HP 12 34,380 191 60
W9XT 27,189 159 57
x
40M
PY0FF 274,284 1604 57
W0UN (W0UA) 220,311 807 91
ON4UN 201,042 1241 53
W3GH (W9XR) 185,913 681 91
KR4UJ 29,574 160 477 62
W3CPB 6 17,388 126 46
20M
K6KM (WM2C/6) 262,170 971 2901 90
N4OGW/9 HP 238,920 911 2715 88
WB9HRO HP 16 179,265 703 85
OI8BQT 45,717 311 933 49
K8MR 4 33,825 205 55
15M
KR4DL 21,948 124 59
MULTI/SINGLE
KC1XX 3,680,000 3158 389
VP2EN 3,580,000 4255 281
V31EV 3,535,560 4270 12810 276
K5ZD 3,510,000 3005 390
XE2KB 2,983,725 3725 11175 267
N4RJ 2,458,000 2294 358
W3GG 1,191,216 1331 3984 299
K0IJL 604,778 908 222
K6XO/7 245,847 509 1527 161
MULTI/TWO
N2RM 4,970,000 3779 439
N3RS 4,481,160 3490 10470 428
K8AZ 3,000,000 2698 379
W6GO 1,972,248 2221 6663 296
K0RF 1,734,000 1923 301
ND3A (@KF3P) 1,564,146 1539 4614 339
MULTI/MULTI
W3LPL 5,950,000 4195 472
K1KI 5,786,340 4202 12579 460
K3LR 4,600,000 3534 442
W4MYA 3,364,800 2831 8412 400
K2ANS 2,542,000 2367 360
WD8LLD 2,350,000 2133 353
KY1H 2,251,422 2127 6507 346
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
OPERATORS LIST
Call Ops
MS
N4RJ K4BAI,KM9P
K6XO/7 AB7GM,K6XO
XE2KB XE2KB,AB5TV,KG5U,KZ8E,N5RP,WB5N
W3GG W3GG,AA3BX
M2
W6GO AA6WJ,K3EST,N6IG,N6IYS,NB6G,W6GO
N3RS N3RS,N3RD,N3ED
ND3A ND3A,WR3Z
MM
KY1H KY1H,WM1K,K1MBO,WA1QCG,K2WR,W1MJ,WA1ZAM
W4MYA W4MYA,KA4RRU,K7SV,K3LTX,WA4QDM,K04FM,WB4NFS,NJ4F
K1KI K1KI,K1TO,K1CC,KG1D,KM1P,W1OD,W2RM,AA2DU,KF2FB
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
THESE ARE NOT OFFICIAL SCORES!! DO NOT SEND ME ANY LOGS!!
PLEASE DO NOT POST ANY SCORES TO THE CQ-CONTEST REFLECTOR!!!!
Send scores to the 3830 reflector or to me direct.
These scores are put in the classes by what the person submitted them.
Please do not email me and tell me there is no such class or it should
be called something else. I only by what the individual sends me.
I believe to subscribe to the 3830 reflector email 3830-REQUEST at akorn,net
and put subscribe in message body.
Please remember if you do not give me a class that I can figure out you
will be put in the Unlimited Class. I have no way of reading your minds.
73's Jim
**********************************************************
* Jimmy R. Floyd (Jim) Thomasville, NC *
* *
* Amateur Call: >> WA4ZXA << *
* Packet Node: >> N4ZC << *
* Internet Address: **NEW** >> floydjr at interpath.com << *
**********************************************************
>From Jerry Sidorov" <jerry at ua9ar.urc.ac.ru Tue Feb 20 18:22:56 1996
From: Jerry Sidorov" <jerry at ua9ar.urc.ac.ru (Jerry Sidorov)
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 96 21:22:56 +0300
Subject: UBA rules wanted.
Message-ID: <AA06XAnen0 at ua9ar.urc.ac.ru>
Hello everybody,
I'd like to get the 1996 UBA rules. Would somebody be so kind
to send it to me?
Thanks in advance.
---
73, Jerry UA9AR, a member of the RK9AWN crew.
Mail: Jerry Sidorov, P/O Box 9411, * E-mail: jerry at ua9ar.urc.ac.ru
Chelyabinsk, 454080, Russia *
>From David C. Patton" <mudcp3 at uxa.ecn.bgu.edu Tue Feb 20 16:50:05 1996
From: David C. Patton" <mudcp3 at uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (David C. Patton)
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 1996 10:50:05 -0600 (CST)
Subject: FINAL-Feb-SprintCW-Rumors
Message-ID: <199602201650.KAA17619 at ecom5.ecn.bgu.edu>
February CW Sprint
Scores collected by WX3N
High Power:
N6TR/7 16,309 347 x 47
K5GN 15,386 314 x 49
KR0Y/5 15,300 306 x 50
K5GA 15,141 309 x 49
WN4KKN/6 14,993 319 x 47
K6LL/7 14,592 304 x 48
N2IC/0 14,490 315 x 46
K4VX/0 14,400 300 x 48 WX3N
N8SR/6 14,208 296 x 48
K1KI 14,050 281 x 50
----------------------------
N6TV 13,984 304 x 46
N6RO 13,865 295 x 47
K5MR 13,570 295 x 46
N6ND 13,432 292 x 46 N6CW
N2NT 13,248 276 x 48
K6NA 13,230 294 x 45
KZ2S 13,156 286 x 46
AD5Q 12,878 274 x 47
K1DG/6 12,672 288 x 44
AB6FO 12,558 273 x 46
----------------------------
N6ZZ/5 12,555 279 x 45
N6XI 12,555 279 x 45
K0RF 12,466 271 x 46
AC6T 12,427 289 x 43
W1WEF 12,420 270 x 46
N6AA 12,195 271 x 45 WHEN ON 40 AMP ON 20
N6VR 12,060 268 x 45
AA5WQ/0 12,048 251 x 48 AT W0CP
W9RE 12,012 273 x 44
W2RQ 12,006 261 x 46
----------------------------
W6UE 11,822 257 x 46 op?
WB5B 11,822 257 x 46
K4PQL 11,528 262 x 44
KW8N 11,352 264 x 43
K3WW 11,240 235 x 48
WB0O 11,115 247 x 45
KE3Q 11,070 246 x 45
K7UP/5 11,025 245 x 45 KN5H
WA6OTU/5 10,865 265 x 41
N4OGW/9 10,845 241 x 45
----------------------------
N4ZZ 10,794 257 x 42
AA7BG 10,290 245 x 42
KM0L 10,272 214 x 48
WM4T 10,166 221 x 46 KU8E
K9ZO 10,080 224 x 45
KC6CNV 10,080 240 x 42
N4TQO/6 9,900 220 x 45
K5ZD/1 9,541 203 x 47
K3MD 9,374 218 x 43
W5ASP 9,348 228 x 41
----------------------------
VE4VV 9,156 218 x 42
K4AMC 8,897 217 x 41
NV6O 8,897 217 x 41 @ AA6WJ
KC4ZV 8,889 202 x 44
NA5Q 8,856 216 x 41
WW2Y 8,685 193 x 45
W1IHN/4 8,464 202 x 42
W7ZRC 8,307 213 x 39
WR3O/4 7,720 193 x 40
K3JT/8 7,280 182 x 40
----------------------------
N6HC 7,000 175 x 40
WN3K/2 6,840 171 x 40
K9WIE/0 6,031 163 x 37
KC5SPL 4,620 132 x 35 WB5VZL
N5RZ 1,320 55 x 24 wet feet and dust storm
AE0M/6 648 36 x 18 indoor ants
LOW POWER
NM5M 13,230 270 x 49
N0AX/7 11,500 250 x 46
K7SS 10,215 227 x 45 KH6. Cliff
K6XO/7 9,890 215 x 46
WX9E 9,328 212 x 44
W9WI/4 9,234 160 x 57 57?!!!
WQ5L 9,116 212 x 43
WA2SRQ 8,820 196 x 45
KB8N/5 8,610 210 x 41
AB4RX 8,241 201 x 41
KZ8E/5 7,503 183 x 41
----------------------------
W0HSC 7,120 178 x 40 KB0IHM ND!!
AA5BT 6,923 161 x 43
WA6KUI/4 6,480 162 x 40
KK9W/0 6,438 174 x 37 IA!!
N4ZR/8 5,814 153 x 38
K8JLF/1 5,358 141 x 38
AA9AX 4,760 136 x 35
VE5SF 4,352 136 x 32
WB0OLA/9 3,496 92 x 38
WA7BNM/6 2,790 93 x 30
W5NN 2,560 80 x 32 KB5YVT
KW1K 1,809 67 x 27
AD4VH 1,701 63 x 27 1.2HRS 80M
WB4IUX 990 45 x 22
KJ6HO 480 32 x 15 1.5 HRs 1st CW Sprint
Notice all the slashes. EMail your logs to Tree at
tree at cmicro.com
73, Dave Patton, WX3N
mudcp3 at uxa.ecn.bgu.edu
>From richard.frey at Harris.COM (dfrey) Tue Feb 20 15:08:22 1996
From: richard.frey at Harris.COM (dfrey) (dfrey)
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 1996 10:08:22 -0500
Subject: Matchboxes, ladder line, and 160M.
Message-ID: <129fd8c0 at maila.harris.com>
Jim,
There are no good matchboxes on the market for balanced lines. Those
that use the ferrite core baluns are asking for abuse without proper
system analysis. The Viking suffers from bandwidth limitations as
correctly mentioned by your respondent. Not a good choice for 160M.
I missed your original query. XM and Ten-Tec both make good KW
tuners. They use L networks which inherently have the best bandwidth
and lowest loss. Neither handle balanced lines any better than any
other tuner on the market for the reason above.
If you are only going to use it on 160M, why not MAKE one? Most
antennas at 160M are low impedance anyway so you only have to carry
current rather than big voltages - as long as you stick to an
L-network. I have a great tuner on my inverted L. 8 turns #12 house
wire, three 820pF surplus mica transmitting caps padding a dual 360pF/
section 500V BC variable. The antenna base impedance is about 20 ohms
and is 70 feet from the shack. I didn't want to mess with a tuner
outside, so I feed it with a length of half inch 75 ohm TV hard-line.
The loss here is less than 0.1 dB. I measured the impedance with a
simple noise bridge, calculated the needed values with the formula
from the handbook, scrounged in my junque box, and was on the air with
Mr. Alpha in an hour.
By the way, building a tuner in a shielded box is a waste of time if
the antenna is fed with coax. You get a lot more rf radiated into the
shack from the antenna than from a puny little matchbox. In my shack,
I have a "one antenna one matchbox" policy. All are homebrew. None
cost more than $20 to build but it depends on where you get your
parts. The total cost is still cheaper than any single commercial
tuner you can buy. It sure makes changing bands easy.
For balanced lines, you still need to know the impedance at the tx
end. The only reason you are using balanced line is to keep the
system losses low. If you can get it close to 200 (+/- 100) ohms
or 50 +/- 25 ohms, by changing length of antenna or feedline, use
a core balun. If not, you can build a balanced tuner from
schematics in any Handbook - the older the better. When I used
one, I built it on the wall where the feeders came in. Once tuned
and coax hooked up, any tweaking for band edge SWR was done with a
small L-net at the operating position.
Speaking as one who has designed and sold more than a few products
for the amateur and commercial markets, it hurts me to hear people
complaining of the faults in matchboxes which are, in truth, due to
applications outside their design capabilities.
Dick Frey, P.E. 9A/K4XU in beautiful downtown Zagreb
>From De Syam <syam at Glue.umd.edu> Tue Feb 20 17:07:37 1996
From: De Syam <syam at Glue.umd.edu> (De Syam)
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 1996 12:07:37 -0500 (EST)
Subject: K3ZO comments on ARRL CW DX Contest
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960220115728.13532A-100000 at logo.eng.umd.edu>
As usual I was in the single-operator all-band high-power category
this year, unassisted (no packet or net).
Just prior to the contest I thought I would have rotor problems, as
the Tailtwister on the 10/15/20 meter W6PU quad was beginning to
act up, and while the prop pitch which rotates my 20/80 meter Yagis
was working, the selsyn in the shack had burned up, leaving me with
the fall-back technique of using my watch's second hand to time the
rotor as it went around. Fortunately, KO7V showed up on Wednesday
afternoon and fixed both problems.
That left me with the ice damage to the 80 meter beam's loading
wires, caused by a storm two years ago. We have never been able to
get the beam fully tuned on CW since then, but an antenna tuner
permanently in the line has provided a reasonable fix until we get
more crane time this summer. An ice storm this past December
broke the reflector wires on both my 20 and 10 meter quads, but the
elements are still full length, just not forming closed loops any
more, and the SWR actually seems to have dropped a bit on the CW
ends of both bands, so it was difficult to notice any difference in
performance, except that the occasional wind gust caused temporary
shorting to the 15 meter reflector on 20, which may have generated
some crackling noise on the band for loud stations off the back of
me. At least that's what I noticed on receive.
I had two goals prior to contest time: I had noticed that, in
comparing my results in last year's contest with my competitors, my
QSO total on 40 had been down, so I was determined to make more Q's
on 40 this year. Also, I decided that, based on my observations on
80 in last fall's CQWW CW, I would do less S&P and more running on
80 this year. Both goals were met, but I was still beat by Lew,
N2LT (who I had bested last year), who blew me away on 20, 1400 Q's
for him vs. 1075 for me. In retrospect, my biggest tactical error
during the contest was probably hanging around on 15 Saturday
waiting for a European opening that never happened while 20 was
wide open.
At the PVRC meeting the Monday prior to the contest, I had
predicted that, based on the predictions of the Weather Channel, we
would have beautifully quiet bands on 160 and 80 all weekend
because of predictions of a frigid, dry weekend. I was half right.
Saturday night was beautifully quiet on those bands, but on Friday
night the snowstorm buffeting the East Coast seemed to generate
considerable QRN, though at least it was pretty much out of this
area by contest time and I didn't have any precipitation static on
the antennas. When I mentioned frigid, dry weather at the meeting,
someone mentioned line noise, as they generally go hand in hand.
Indeed, I was bothered by line noise toward Asia on 20 at all times
and gave up trying to run JA's after five minutes of trying
Saturday night because I was obviously being an alligator. Had to
resort to going around the band and S&P'ing the louder ones.
When 15 finally opened to Europe on Sunday line noise also pretty
much kept me from running Europeans. Putting in the noise blanker
yielded a noise keyed by CW which read "CQ TEST de KT3Y" all over
the band. I guess you know who isn't too far away from me and
beams almost right at me when he is beaming on Europe.
Unfortunately my Isle of Man "QRM eliminator" is hard-wired to my
auxiliary R4C which is not a very hot receiver on 15. So my 15
meter efforts toward Europe were largely S&P. At least the line
noise was not much of a factor on 20 when I beamed Europe.
As W3LPL had predicted at the aforementioned PVRC meeting, the
bands showed what it's like to be at the bottom of the sunspot
cycle. A graph in the latest issue of the PVRC Newsletter shows
the cycle bottoming out this year and beginning to head upwards
again by the fall. Let's hope it's right. The cycle always rises
faster than it falls.
Aside from 10 yielding only 11 QSO's in 5 countries for me, 15 was
noticeable for its lack of Europeans on Saturday. Only IQ4A made
it into my log on 15 that day from Europe. Usually we want a low
K-index for contesting, but at this point in the susnpot cycle a
bit of a disturbance can sometimes raise the MUF. Thank goodness
the K index went up to 3 on Sunday morning or we probably wouldn't
have had the European opening that day either.
Forty meters was also affected by the low solar flux numbers, with
paths that we have been accustomed to just not there at times
becuase the MUF for those paths was below 7 MHz. Most noticeable
was the absence of the European sunrise opening this year, and the
lack of a direct polar opening to Japan. The JA's I worked came in
over Hawaii, though NH2G was loud on direct path. As for the
European sunrise opening, I heard W8FJ telling OH0MYF at about 0800
GMT that he was coming in "long path". What was actually
happening, however, was that there was no direct path opening, so
we were getting a Southeast scatter path over Africa into Europe,
much as we are accustomed to with Europe on 20 in the wee hours of
the morning. This phenomenon has now dropped down to 40 meters.
At about this time I ran the beam around from 45 to 180 degrees
while listening to ON4UN and John's signal stayed about the same
strength the whole way. John picked the wrong band to to single
band on this year. On the other hand, 40 was as hot as a pistol
during the mid-afternoon hours, and if you weren't there by 2000Z
you were missing a lot.
Eighty was in good shape, and until the last half hour of the
contest I was in the unusual position of having worked more JA's on
80 than on 20. I was able to find a run frequency low in the band
most of the time when the band was open to Europe, and only had to
give it up on two occasions. Once W9RE fired up just above me and
generated such a huge pile-up of Europeans that some of them
slopped over on "my" frequency and largely prevented the Europeans
from hearing me. Whatever you have on 80, Mike, don't touch it!
The other time was when KC1XX, though he was 3 or 4 KHz away from
me, was putting such a monstrous signal in here that he overloaded
my front end and I had to move further away.
I could hear plenty of Europeans on my transmit antenna on 160 but
I was disappointed at not hearing more multipliers out of Europe.
I didn't do any CQ'ing on 160 for fear of being an alligator. And
how about that booming signal on 160 from KH6CC at sunrise? He
sounded like a W9.
Twenty meters was a good mainstay during the daylight hours but
nothing very surprising happened there. I was surprised to be
called by JA1JKG and JA7YAA at 1800-1815 GMT while running
Europeans. How could the band be open at 3 o'clock in the morning
in Japan when it was so dead over here at that hour?
Last year I had 19 QSO's removed from my log in this contest, and
I know that with ARRL it's mostly getting the exchange wrong so
this year asked for a lot of repeats. For this purpose "NR?" seems
to work better than "PWR?" Since I was being so careful to copy
the exchanges this year, I noticed that an awful ot of people sent
me "599J00". Well, is it "599100" or 599200"? It turned out that
about 90% of the people who sent me "599J00" were really trying to
send "599100", so if you want to avoid asking for repeats that's
the percentage solution.
Anyhow, I thought that, given conditions, it was not so bad to have
2400 QSO's this year compared with 2600 last year, but both N6BV
and N2LT, who I had edged out last year, came in ahead of me this
year, so maybe I did something wrong.
Very 73,
Fred Laun, K3ZO
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