[CQ-Contest] ARRL 160M Contest stories wanted

Tue Dec 22 04:59:03 PST 2009

I had the wrong idea that the contest would begin at 10PM local HK time (03.00 Z). So I had quite I surprise when at around 5 PM, before SunSet, I turned the radio on to check top band with a  at 10 m high doublet for 160m, and TB was bubbling with contesting dihs and dahs!

At that moment I was getting ready with tools to take walk a couple of hundred meters from the shack to a 20 m high coconut tree where we had installed a pulley at 17 m level and  hanged a vertical antenna wannabe lenght of wire that had 96 m of horizontal wire and ca. 15 - 16 m of vertical run only. The 96 m were distributed in four lenghts of 24m, for bottom and top loading. The problem was that it was getting dark and I had to install alone the two bottom loading wires on top of an unconnected electric fence (for cattle) and I don't like poisonous snakes at all (it is not phobia but close, hi hi) and SS is the time when the rattlesnakes, coral and mapanás are wondering around. So I decided to connect one side of the 200 m long open wire line to the bottom of the vertical run and the other conductor to the top wire of the electrical fence that runs for kilometers in the farm, and then "snake" out of the tropical mini-forest ASAP!

The first night was not so good with this unfinished vertical antenna, but we managed to do some S&P, with many stations having problems to copy our weak signal. We had only 500W out of the TL922 because of the AC supply 220 voltage that was a little low. Anyway, the vertical was good at receiving (or the fence), we even copied a ZL station, loud 579. 

Next day I had the vertical finished and many stations that didn't copy 5J1A the first night, answered to our first call. 

Pedro - HK1X, and I, installed also a Beverage, unterminated, 330º azimuth and 270 m long. I was eager to test a Bev for the first time on 160m, but when we connected it, the QRM caused by a power line transformer rendered it useless on 160, the noise is not so though on 80m. In the end, we had the vertical and the doublet and the fun.

CU on CQ160.

73

David  
HK1A
EC5KXA
ex-HK1KXA

> Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:38:55 -0500
> From: somata90924 at mypacks.net
> To: rosner at hep.uchicago.edu; k9ay at k9ay.com
> CC: smc at w9smc.com; topband at contesting.com; secc at contesting.com; cq-contest at contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] [SMC] ARRL 160M Contest stories wanted
> 
> CONDITIONS WERE GOOD FOR ME, I WORKED as many staions as i could hear, this year I DID NOT have a beverage up for stateside, as in previous years, I found the operators to be very friendly and accomondating.  Had trouble with eu stations (LOUD) wanting a qso, which i did give them, breaking any usa contacts.  Thrills were working Pacific stations at 579.....loud.... no problems......see u all next year.  ANTENA HERE IS INVERTED V AT 100FEET.
> 
> joe ZF2AH
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> >From: "Jonathan L. Rosner" <rosner at hep.uchicago.edu>
> >Sent: Dec 15, 2009 2:28 PM
> >To: K9AY <k9ay at k9ay.com>
> >Cc: smc at w9smc.com, topband at contesting.com, secc at contesting.com, cq-contest at contesting.com
> >Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] [SMC] ARRL 160M Contest stories wanted
> >
> >On Mon, 14 Dec 2009, K9AY wrote:
> >
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> I'm looking for interesting stories for the writeup of the ARRL 160M 
> >> contest. I'll bet the stories are as good as the conditions!
> >
> >I was inspired by Eric's call for QRP entries to see how QRP would play.
> >As a test, I went on 160 the night before the contest and managed to
> >work SV3RF with 5 watts.  As our noise level is S9 here in the city,
> >conditions must have been exceptional that night, and he must have some
> >great RX capability.
> >
> >There was no EU DX to be had here during the contest, but persistence
> >paid off with a couple of Caribbean mults and several ones in the US.
> >The total of 386 Q's and 65 mults is my best QRP effort on any 160
> >contest.  The only way I can think of doing better would be to
> >operate longer than the 13:45 hours I put in.
> >
> >73,
> >Jon     WO9S
> >-- 
> > 	Jonathan L. Rosner               Phone: 773-702-7694
> >         Enrico Fermi Inst., U. Chicago   Fax:   773-702-8038
> >         5640 S. Ellis Avenue             rosner at bquark.uchicago.edu
> >         Chicago, IL 60637 USA		 or rosner at hep.uchicago.edu
> >_______________________________________________
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> >CQ-Contest at contesting.com
> >http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
> 
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