[SCCC] CQ160 CW W4EF Single Op Assisted HP

[Michael Tope]

  CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW

Call: W4EF
Operator(s): W4EF
Station: W4EF

Class: Single Op Assisted HP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 06:10

Summary:
QSOs = 310
State/Prov = 54
Countries = 26
Total Score = 72,640

Club: Southern California Contest Club

Comments:

Rig: Omni 6+
Amp: Drake L-7
TX Antenna: 56' top-loaded vertical
RX Antenna: RX 4 square

I had intended to do a more serious effort, but I caught a pretty wicked
cold the Friday before the contest so I decided my time would be better 
spent leisurely doing some much needed work in the shack and on the 
antennas (as well as resting). My homebrew copy of W8JI's RX 4 Square is 
starting to play finally (a corroded fastener on one of the elements was 
causing big problems), but the element tuning is still off about 100 to 
200 KHz depending on the element. Hopefully, once I take a few turns off 
the matching inductors and get the feedpoint impedance down close to 75 
+j0 the array will really come into its own.

Except for calling YE1C at sunrise on Saturday morning (to no avail), I
didn't start operating until 0400 UTC on Saturday night. Fortunately,
this coincided with a good opening to Europe so I was able to work a
decent helping of 10 point multipliers including three all-time new 160M
DXCC countries. After Europe faded around 0800 UTC, so did I. I woke up
around 1130 UTC and gave it another go spurred on by my desire to find
Oklahoma, Mississippi, Delaware and complete WAS. I found AA1K in
Delaware, but missed OK and MS. By 1300 UTC my cold symptoms made
sleeping seem like a much more attractive option than working the
contest, so I once again QSYed to the couch for another two hours. I got
up again at sunrise in hopes of one last shot at YE1C, but the band was
in really bad shape, so much so that the few loud JAs I did hear were 
CQing in my face. In fact, it was so bad that I looked out the window to 
see if the high winds from the night before had toppled my TX antenna. 
At that point I think seeing the antenna on the ground would have made 
me happier as at least then I would have a good excuse for being so weak :-)

See you all next year.

Mike W4EF........