[SECC] SS Phone Thoughts

[Bill Coleman]

I know many of you have moved on to CQWW CW, but I'm still digesting what 
happened during SS Phone. Here's some of my thoughts.

Good:

* Having a beam makes all the difference. I could get through to any 
station on the higher bands on the first call, for the most part. It's a 
world of difference from using the R7000, where you call and call and 
call and maybe get through when no one else is calling.

* Rate during the first hours was right at my target of 50/hr. 20m was 
good. Started off there and had 13 Qs in 12 minutes. Then nothing for 
four minutes, at which point I went to S & P.

* Did an RFI audit of my house before the contest. Only found two bad RFI 
problems: 1) on the A3S, I get into the master bedroom telephone 2) the 
downstairs TV/VCR feeds audio into the TV speakers. I fixed the latter by 
disconnecting the VCR cables. The former was fixed by telling my wife to 
use the portable phone (which is rock solid with no RFI whatsoever).

* Missed the sweep by one. This is good. I don't mind missing the hardest 
section of all: NWT/YU. I focused on rate and managed to get 79 sections. 
Had 75 sections after the initial 12 hours. Last three were: SD, NV, WY. 
Easily worked.

Bad:

* 40m sloper just does not cut it when the band is full of region 1 QRM. 
Thinking seriously of the 40m option for the A3S. It would buy me another 
10 feet, and allow me to rotate the dipole.

* 80m dipole at 35' feet is too low. No one could hear me well. Never did 
get responses to CQs on this band.

* Voice keyer makes an annoying "pop" at the end of the message. This 
keeps the rig VOX keyed, which caused me to lose the first letter or so 
of many callers. In SS, with the repeated callsign in the exchange, it 
wasn't so bad, but needs to be fixed.

Improvements:

* Need to stay on 20m more. Last years record low-power GA effort by W4WA 
had nearly half the QSOs on 20m. K4BAI's high-power effort of this year 
had nearly 2/3 of the Qs on 20m. In GA at this point of the sun-spot 
cycle, 20m is the place to be. 40m might be good if it weren't for all 
the region 1 QRM in the evening. On CW, it's more of a 20/40m split. But 
in Phone, 20m rules. Next year, I'm spending half my time on 20m.

* Need to produce runs. This is very difficult with low power. I avoided 
the temptation to call CQ on 10m, but did manage several runs on 20m, a 
couple on 15m, and one nice one on 40m early. Next time I may switch to 
40m a bit earlier, then escape back to 20m when the QRM gets bad.

* 2 Radios. This would solve the run vs search dilemma. Runs often come 
in spurts. You can't just sit there and call CQ for more than about 2-4 
minutes without answers. So, sometimes you might give up an otherwise 
decent run frequency during a lull. With 2 radios, you can continue to 
make contacts during a lull in getting answers to your CQs.

* More effective antennas for the low bands. The 40m option for the A3S 
should definitely go up before next year. I'm also trying to shunt-feed 
my tower for 80m. I hope this would be more effective than the low 
doublet. If I get the 40m option for the A3S, I may turn the 40m sloper 
into an 80m sloper.

Anyone have any suggestions?



Bill Coleman, AA4LR, PP-ASEL        Mail: aa4lr@arrl.net
Quote: "Not within a thousand years will man ever fly!"
            -- Wilbur Wright, 1901


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