[NCC] Congrats to NO3M - Spratly on 160!

Tue Mar 13 22:06:25 EDT 2018

At sunrise after breakfast Krassy and I.wired in a 180 delay transformer
that could be switched from the operating position to switch the 2 el array
from BROADSIDE to end FIRE - and also to unidirectional NE or SW.

Thus night 2 at 1030z was  far better for us on Topband - DU7ET was there
again and we were ON TIME at 1015z for our SUNSET at 1033z..  Instantly N4WW
was worked with a respectable signal (this means we could hear.him at about
RST 349.)

Since Dragan YT3W has the logs and I am now doing this from memory, I do not
remember if we then worked NO3M - or if it was the next night - but Eric
became our Northeastern most qso on 160M - so congrats top Eric for hearing
us and for making us be able to hear him (barely!)  Water-weak like would
aptly describe our side of this qso (HI)

We worked quite a few USA mid-western and Far Western stations this night -
plus at least 300 Europeans.  My son Patrick KK6ZM had a great signal near
his SR peakl - it was among the loudest signals we worked on night two.

At SR after this night, Krassy and I decided to take down the runway 160M
radiator, and use only the single 160m radiator - and we threw its 20 odd
radials into the salt water lagoon.

We moved this spider pole to the north side of theisland and plavced it on
the seawall - and used it fro 80M SSB  thereafter.

We also decided we had to try to find a way to get a beverage up on 160M for
RX - even if it was only one that could be aimed at EU.

ZL3WW came up with a scheme to use the 2nd abandoned vertical feedline for
this beverage and by relocating the coax slightly we started at the runway
and got a NW beverage straight for about 800 feet toward the seawall - then
we crossed a pathway in the air - and ran it at least another 500 feet along
the seawall.

This turned out to be a real gem - as we ran the table for HOURS into EU
after SR had passed in W6/W7.  It made a huge difference in our ability to
work the 2nd and 3rd tier EU callers.

It worked so well that ZL3WW and I tried our hand the next afternoon  on a
USA beverage to the NE.

The plan was to switch the feedline to the USA at our SS and then at 1 430
after W7 SR move the feedline over to the EU beverage again,  This was easy
to do at 10:30PM in the dark as it was an open field and with a flashlight
it took all of 5 mins.  

This was a pretty fair beverage - about 650 feet long - straight as an arrow
- but it also ran close to the hotel complex for most of its run.  As I
feared,this one was not stone cold quiet like the Eu beverage was - when I
switched to it there was some kind of background hash that covered up most
weaker signals.  Listening on the EU beverage did not work well either
towards NA - as while it was super quiet - it was at least 90 degrees off of
a true NE shortpath NA heading - some USA signals could be heard on it - but
not the East Coast weaker guys we desperately wanted to work.

So night 4 we spent listening for NA on the single 160m vertical located at
the seawall - and listened to EU on its quieter NW beverage.

AGAIN Eu was bedlam all night long - 160M to NA was only  so so - we worked
into the mid west and then the NW USA at their SR pretty well.

Near SR Krassy who had departed for 80CW late into the EU opening - went to
sleep - and YT3W took over near our SR grayline peak.

I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw his 80 CW Grayline contacts come
onto my screen.

In the space of 10 mins, he logged K1CP (Maine), N1RJ (also Maine) - and
W1JR (NH) - followed by PY5EG - Atilano - and then the LP sunset peak had
passed on the eastern seaboard of NA because we went into daylight on our
side at SR.

Next email I will talk about our final night on Topband - which was our last
night at SS on Layang Layang.

Jeff Briggs
DXing on the Edge: The Thrill of 160 Meters 
Available worldwide through BookBaby, Array Solutions, DX Engineering, Royal
Society of Great Britain, & Amazon

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