Topband: 160 FROM GUANTANAMO BAY CUBA

[N4BAA - Jose Castillo]

Top Banders...

Having just returned from KG4 land....I wanted to pass along my sincere 
thanks for those who called
and made the trip a lot of fun!

I went on this year's trip to "GITMO" with the intent of operating more 
160 than last year.
The QTH down there is FAR from perfect as the shack resides in a "bowl" 
surrounded my mountains...
For a transmit antenna, this year I took along a coaxial inverted L 
which was attached to a 85 foot telephone pole!
I took with me 10,000 feet of radials and put those out as well...ALL of 
it!!!...came to about 60 plus radials with the longest
radials around 200 feet....

For receiving I took enoughwire to install 5 beverages....300 feet was 
the shortest to South America....with ASIA/EU's being 1080 feet long and
(2) USA's 540 feet long.....and 1080 to VK/ZL.    That having been 
said....I could NOT get any of the beverages to play at all.....I was in 
a panic mode!  I got a hold of W3LPL, K4XG and some others in an attempt 
to "adjust" something....but to no avail....

As the ground in CUBA is very poor...(all coral)...I tried putting (4) 
1/4WL radials at each end....nothing...
I tried them as Beverages on ground as well as up to 7 feet above 
ground.....nothing....
I tried changing terminating resistor values......nothing....
I tried connecting a common 'ground' wire from feed end to terminating 
end.....nothing...
I wound NEW transformers.....nothing....
I tested/swapped out feed line coax and type of coax......nothing....
On the Antenna analyzer they ALL looked good!!!  ARGHhhhhhhhhhhhh

Setup was same as I have here in VA...which does well....came home with 
same materail on Tuesday....reinstalled them on Wednesday...
Everything fine!....

Bottom line was that I was very disappointed at NOT being able to hear 
the massive amounts of EU stations calling me...AND I APPOLOGIZE!
only worked 725 QSOs ( ALL CQing...NO S& P QSOs) in the CQ160 CW 
contest...and that was all using the transmit antennas for recieving as 
well...MY BRAIN WAS MUSH AFTER those 17 hours of operating!!!

I will probably go back next year to either VP5 or KG4 land and will 
have to come up with something that works for recieve!...May have to 
TAKE along one of the BEVERAGE gurus with me because I Can't/WON'T do 
that again!!! HI HI

73's....

Jose - N4BAA / KG4SB