Topband: Best year ever

[Rick D]

The first 160 contest I entered was in the 70's and I still have the paper log of 152 Qs and 36 multipliers. The antenna was a 32' wire up thrown up along the side of my 35' crank up tower and base loaded. Over the years that followed I tried various configurations of antennas at a max of 35', probably everything conceived my anyone. The first to get me east of the Mississippi was the 35 up 80 out inverted L. I swear the version I made one year with 450 ohm ladder line was the best. 

When the house was being built I laid about 1500 feet of bare #12 wire in all the sprinkler trenches over about 12,000 sf of lot and connected to the pool steel in a bunch of places. All the wires come back to the base of the tower and I have five 10 foot ground rods spaced about 8' apart coming back to the shack. For most of the contests I would lay 4-5 full size radials on the surface, but I've stopped doing that. Mr. Alpha 78 seems much more effective.

After analyzing a few years of logs I found I worked the same top tier stations within about 10-15 minutes of the same time year after year. I learned that I could hear some east coast guys at 0000 Z but it was a waste of time for me to call them until 0400z, and I'd get them on one call. So over the years I pushed my score up a little. The best I ever did was about 294 Qs and 63 multipliers.

This year I took down my Create 40/80 ground plane which has a ton of radials, removed the 40 meter trap and added an extension wire off the top. The base is 20' off the ground and the new "L" is about 31' up from there and about 75' out. It takes a little uh to resonate, but it works well.... much better than anything else I've had up. If you heard some flaky CW from me at the start of the contest, it was the vacuum relay going out again in the Alpha 78. 

For me 160 is like golf.... no matter how bad it is, you always have one good thing that brings you back. Some years, like this one for me, you miss 1s and 2s, others I missed 4's or VEs. the whole secret to 160 is the LOCATION of the antenna, not grounds, trees, height etc. Guys with a mobile screw driver or other people with the same lousy antenna and no noise will cream you on 160.

My noise on AM is +30 db and S-8 in narrow CW right now on 160 and never gets much better. I have tried every receiving loop, rod, coil, MFJ etc from here and NOTHING is EVER better on real stations than the full size antenna with 20-30 db attenuator plugged in, sorry but true.... 30 years of tests.... but what the heck a K9AY is in the planning stage. There are radio controlled capacitors on the power lines near me that go on and off and I can null the noise with a loop, but the big antenna always wins on weak DX.

All this said, this year I don't think I had to call anyone more than twice and I worked many guys a lot earlier than ever before. It is probably the first time I didn't just S&P. Sorry for all the broken Qs on my CQs for the weaker stations, but if you worked me you are probably a big gun hi hi this was my first year with over 300 Qs and 67 multipliers, I don't know why I missed most of the 1 and 2s except AA1K and a few other big guns.... I was probably watching TV when they were on.

So what will keep me coming back?  Well having #41 DXCC UA0DC and JA3YBK answer MY CQs for one thing, working KL7RA when some of the big stations missed him, having PJT2 come back to me first call in a huge pile up all come to mind. By the way JA3YBK was the ONLY JA I could hear, sad for me. One year I operated 160 from the old K6RR station in CQWW and the JAs on 160 were like 10 meters with high SSNs. I can imagine how the big stations with beverages and a quite QTH must enjoy that. 

I wish I could hear all the S-3 or 4 stations but that is not going to happen. In the old CD Parties I ran over 200 an hour sometime so the limit here is station not operator. With WAS and #41 so far, I suppose WAC is next. I've made it into AF, but have NEVER heard a EU station on 160... but I'm still listening.

160 is a challenge for some, like QRP....hummmmm haven't tried that for years, anyone have an HW-8 for sale?


Rick Darwicki  -= N6PE =-
=================================================
17775 Elmhurst Circle
Yorba Linda, CA 92886
http://www.qsl.net/n6pe/