[SCCC] A New England Story (W1PH)

[w6ph at aol.com]

I have been in NH for a couple weeks fighting a persistent cold.   W1JQ  
needed someone to fill out a YCCC team and I said to put me on it  but 
I didn't think I would be on because I had no antennas.  On  Saturday 
morning about 11 am, I found an old Cushcraft AV-5 five band vertical 
antenna in pieces in the basement.  I had to scrounge for some parts 
but I finally found enough to put it together.  I have a pipe  stuck in the 
ground in the back yard with some old radials buried in the lawn  It 
was 18F and breezy outside.  So I shoveled a path in the snow out 
to the pipe and put the vertical on it.  No signals on any  band.  The 
first thing I found was that  the wire going from the connector to the 
tubing had broken but couldn't see it before I put it up.  I  pulled it 
down, took it back to the basement and resoldered the wire and 
then went back outside and put it back up.  Now there were  signals 
and the SWR wasn't too bad (not real good either) with the minimum 
SWRs away from the CW portion.  It was too cold and getting too 
close to starting time to mess around with the dimensions.  Then  I
hooked up my old W1MD NEC 486-50 laptop to the radio but couldn't 
find the W1WEF adapter for computer LPT1 keying.  I started off 
using my old AEA keyer without memories until I took a break about 
three hours later.  Then I found the adapter and hooked up  the 
computer to a Y for the keying.  Of course I forgot to set the time 
in the  computer until after I had made about a dozen contacts.  
Thank goodness for  ALT-F.  (After the contest I discovered the 
date was Jan-1-1980 but I can't get CT_TIME to work with CT 
version 10 which I used for NAQP.)  I was pleasantly surprised 
how well this old vertical and TS-930S worked.  That  TS-930S  
with a Piexx board is still a great radio and keeps chugging 
along.  

Eighty meters was great providing a lot of close in stuff that  wasn't  
available after 40m went long.  Fortunately I went to 40m  early as 
20m wasn't producing any kind of rate and I was able to fill in a 
lot of the northeast multipliers.  I didn't have an antenna for  160m 
and probably would have added 50 or so QSO's plus associated 
mults if I had been able to go there.  My operating  time  ran
out about an hour before the end of the contest which was 
probably the right thing to do without 160m.  My last  contact
was Dick, W6TK on 80m (good signal BTW).

It was a real surprise to  work so many W6's on 80m with 100 w
and this small antenna.  I don't recall any 6's being real loud.
It's no surprise that W6YI and K6LA were in the log about an
hour before I worked another west coast station (about 3 Z).
As was noted in other reports, 20m was long as expected and
40m went long at sunset.  Eighty meters provided the best
propagation to the highest ham population.  
 
All in all, I had a great time.  These shorter contests seem to  be  
easier as I get further into my golden years.  It was good being 
able to use my old call sign which I gave up about 12 years  ago.

73, Kurt, W6PH (dba W1PH)

SO1R

Band            QSOs     Mults
80m               269          45
40m     174           47
20m              128     38
15m             15            6

Total             586     136

SCORE:  79,696       9.9  hours

TS-930S  CT10  
Cushcraft AV-5 (Field Day style)