[CQ-Contest] Minimal SO2R -- is spacing enough?

[Doug Smith W9WI]

> From: Pete Smith <n4zr at contesting.com>
> 
> I'm contemplating SO2R for the first time.  I have the two radios and a
> decent amount of real estate.  My question, hoping to benefit from others'
> experience -- do I stand a chance of doing this on CW, relying solely on
> polarity diversity, low power on the second radio and distance between
> antennas?  Or should I just assume the worst and plan on bandpass filters?
> For the second radio, I'm thinking of an R-5 or similar vertical, spaced
> about 300 feet from my yagis, running 100 watts.

I hung a Windom off my tower last fall shortly before CW SS.  Radio 1 was an
IC-765 driving a C4 (40/20/15/10) at 22m and 160/80 dipoles sharing a common
feedline at 20m on the tower.  The Windom was connected to Radio 2, a
TS-940.  Ran low power on both radios.

I managed to burn out both radios.  The 765 popped a diode.  (apparently
this is a known problem as it's mentioned in the service bulletins I got
with the radio.  It took less than $1 worth of parts to fix - and Icom has
no minimum order for parts.  Very pleasant repair experience which will
cause this previous Kenwood-head to look much closer at Icom in the future.)
The '940 burned out a resistor in the 10dB attenuator, causing the 10dB
position to sound more like 25dB.  Haven't bothered to fix that yet.  (kinda
afraid to as I have another 940 that's suffering the same problem Wim is
having - and reseating connectors hasn't fixed it.)

I have since reconfigured the Windom to get the radiating parts further from
the tower.  (the east end had been only about a meter from the tower.  It's
now at least 10 meters away.)  Haven't operated SO2R since doing that work
though so I don't know if it was enough to fix the problem.  Probably won't
know until this year's SS.  I'll bet it'll do the trick though.  
-- 
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66
http://www.w9wi.com


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