[CQ-Contest] tips & tricks

[Peter Grillo]

I’ve been reading the new thread.  Here is one that worked in SS.

 

  _____  

From: Peter Grillo [mailto:ah3c at frii.com] 
Sent: Sunday, November 07, 2004 8:46 PM
To: 'k9uiy'
Subject: ss

 

Hi Vic –

 

Sure was great to hear you on today!  You were loud everywhere and you
stomped me good!!!!  Yet, I do have a little humor to add to our vigil this
weekend
.

 

As you know, late August we were hit hard by lightning and tower work was
halted because the base of the small 40’ tower on the side of this 8300’
hill top was blown apart and the 120 foot Rohn 45 is still on the ground
awaiting major project effort.  So, I decided to challenge myself in SS by
pulling up wires to the gin pole that survive the hit on top of the small
tower and make enough Q’s with my FT-1000 in the “A” category to get a sweep
and maybe 100K points.

 

Last weekend I got the wires up.  Imagine 80/40/20 inverted vees fed from
one balun to a 350 foot run of coax.  It took all day Saturday to get them
up, with ends tied to various pine trees.

 

Earlier this week, we had some serious high winds.  I also had to work late
each day so I couldn’t check what may have happened to my newly installed
array
.

 

Yesterday morning, around 10 AM, I took a hike to the top
.instead of 6
wires on the feed line, there were only 3.  One ¼ wave from each band.  I
quickly checked to see if these wires would load and behold, 10/20/40/and 80
all had SWR less than 1.5:1.  15 was 5:1, real bad.

 

To top it off, my TR setup would not key the transmitter, so I ended up
using my MFJ keyer for CQ and trusty paddle.  TR was set up only for
logging, no fancy stuff.  This would be a real test to see if I could
remember how to do it like in the 60’s
.

 

This morning, after struggling with S&P all night I had around 300 Q’s and
needed 5 more sections: VE6, KH6, VY1, NNY, and SC.  I ran across K2NNY
first, then heard a struggling QRP station eeking out info to VY1JA.  That
QSO lasted 2 minutes.  I figured the pileup would be huge
.no, when he
finally finished in his diligent manner, I was the only one waiting with my
puny signal.  He struggled with me also but thankfully hung in there to the
bitter end (thank you immensely, J).  I figured that was the biggest
obstacle
.then I worked 2 VE6’s a half hour later and an SC station called
me way up the 20m band.  So, with 8 hours left in the contest, my only one
missing was KH6.  I was on 10 M for 2 stints that ran dry very quickly.
Then, 15 got crowded with all the west coast CQ machines, so it was back to
S&P on 20.  I crept up the band, picking stations as I went, then heard KH6
giving number to a W6 CQ machine
.now, for the rest of the story.  You know
the trick.  Since you know you have run across an S&P operator who will soon
QSY, you have a 50:50 chance that he will go up or down the band.  I’ve
always started from the low end in my S&P efforts, so I thought maybe that
is common practice.  I started calling the guy just a bit off frequency and
slowly QSY’ed up to drag him to a clear spot, just a few hundred Hz at a
time.  I did this 3 times.  Lo and behold, he came back!  When I jumped off
my seat and the whole family heard me (they knew I was hunting for KH6), I
nearly couldn’t send the message
.a clean sweep with coat hangers
.and 102K
to boot.  Yes Vic, it is still magic to me, 46 years later.

 

I ended up with 639 Q’s in about 20 hours of operating.

 

Tell me about your new QTH.  Sounds great!

 

73,

Pete

W0RTT