[RTTY] WPX

[Don Hill AA5AU]

David G3YYD wrote:

"By the way I made 1600 Qs, 750 prefixes and over 4Million points and that
was after I spent 3 hours fixing an amplifier that failed right at the start
of the contest even though I had tested it the evening before - such is
life."

Congratulations David. I had nearly 1700 Q's and 700 prefixes but scored
over 2.5M points less than you did. Those of us in the USA certainly suffer
from poor scoring rules in WPX. It's just the way it is.

Speaking of failures, I checked my 2-element SteppIR yagi before the contest
and it had an issue. I was able to maneuver it to be resonant on 15 meters
where it's used the most during this time of the sunspot cycle. I was going
to just leave it there and hope it would work as a single band 15 meter
yagi. Then a thunderstorm rolled around and I had to home the elements in
fear of a strike. After that, the antenna was "flat-lined" and would not
resonate anywhere. So during the daytime hours I was down to basically one
radio. My 40 meter inverted vee was resonant on 15 but I didn't hear much on
it.

I will be taking the 2-element SteppIR down for repair and will return it
back to 3 elements as it was before Hurricane Isaac destroyed one of the
housing units back in 2012. It's been a really good antenna for me on a
second radio in contests and backup for when my 3-element was out of
commission a couple times (once for tubing painting last year and once for a
broken shaft just 3 weeks ago). I know a lot of people don't like the
SteppIR antennas because the moving parts can break. But I seem to really
enjoy working on and fixing mine when required. I guess that's why it's a
hobby and not a job.

73, Don AA5AU