[SECC] NAQP CW Jan 2003

[John T. Laney, III]

Hello all:

Not quite a personal best, but managed to reach one goal:  not to be the
lowest score on my team, hi.

In December, W4AN mentioned to me that N6TR reported that I am unusually
weak on 40 M.  So, I plan to improve my 40 meter dipole by hanging it in
an inverted vee fashion from my tower.  Right now, it is straight and
flat and 15 to 20 feet in the air.  At one time it was resonant about
7050, but I have noticed that it isn't that way lately.  Anyway, I
ordered some new RG8?u from HRO and it came on Friday (shipped from NH,
hi).  I replaced the old scrap RG58 coax with the new RG8 and was able
to tune the antenna with the ATU OK.  However, when I finally went to 40
yesterday during NAQP, the antenna didn't work.  Signals were weaker
than on the 80 M wire and the ATU wouldn't come close to tuning it.
Don't know what is wrong and it was too cold today to check it out.
I'll try to figure it out before next weekend's partime effort.  I got
it tuned with the use of the MFJ antenna tuner, but it didn't work
well.  I tried to get as many mults as possible, but didn't try to run
on 40 since the signal was obviously very weak there.  I should have
left "well enough" alone until after the contest, but thought I had
improved thing;s.

I had a terribel power line noise problem in the afternoon that wiped
out the backscatter signals on 15 and 10.  Seemed to be better later and
didn't affect the low bands.

Worked only 6 stations on 6 bands, probably because I finished my 10
hours at 0430Z and the 80/160 meter totals show the result of finishing
too early.  They were K9PG and K4FXN.

Think I worked all states except VT and HI.  Also missed LB, NWT, NB, NU
and YT.  Worked at least one station in each other US/VE mult.  Only one
station on one band from NE.  Nice to hear and work so many SECC
members.

Thanks for the QSOs.  W4OC 4 bands, K4NO 4 bands, KU8E 3 bands, W4AN 3
bands, NS4T one band, KA9EKJ 2 bands, K4GA one band, NE4S, 3 bands,
W4NTI 2 bands, NA4W, one band, and K4IQJ 3 bands.  I probably missed
someone.  I did hear or hear someone working AE4Y and K2UFT.

Worked AL1G in Alaska on 10M, V31JP on 40 M, and TG9/N0AT on 15 and 10.
XE2MX on the three top bands.  Don't think I worked any other NA DX
mults.  Condx for DX didn't seem good and I worked no other DX, but did
hear a LU calling in for some QSOs on 10.

Here is the result:

Band     QSOs    Mults
160    40    23
80    148    36
40    100    44
20    239    52
15    150    47
10    62     34

ALL    743   236   = 175,348.

73,


John, K4BAI.