ARRL 160-Meter Contest
Call: W2GD
Operator(s): K2TW, KU2C, N2HM, N2OO, W1GD, W2ARP, W2CG, W2GD, W2RQ, WW2Y
Station: W2GD
Class: M/S HP
QTH: SNJ
Operating Time (hrs): 33
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 1488 Sections = 79 Countries = 48 Total Score = 465,201
Club: Frankford Radio Club
Comments:
Location: Salt Marsh 20 Miles North of Atlantic City, NJ adjacent to Barnegat
Bay.
Station: K3 x 2, IC756ProII, Alpha 99
TX Antenna: 2 ele Vertical Array fires NE and WSW @ 80 meters over salt water
RX Antennas: 300M phased pair EU, 185M wires NW, West, SW and South
Some Comments:
I think we all enjoy the excitement of a good race and this weekend turned out
to be just that. Top Band is full of surprises. WOW!
Station Prep
Some of our 160 Team has been operating together for nearly 30 years, and for
the last twenty we've operated from temporary locations along the NJ shoreline.
Setting up a remote temporary station takes plenty of pre-planning and
coordination, since its typically a 3 hour roundtrip if something critical is
somehow foregotten.
Traditionally we treat the ARRL 160 SS event as a shakeout cruise for the CQ
160 CW in January. Some years things come together better than others, at the
beginning things were little shakey. This is a semi-FD in winter operation,
the TX antennas are put up in the fall and removed in the spring to avoid
exposure to hurricane season here along the Jersey coastline.
Last summer W1GD did additional modeling of our main TX antenna and discovered
almost by accident that by raising the entire array 55 to 60 feet, there was a
potential improvement of 2 DB gain toward EU. Every DB counts on Top Band I'm
sure we all agree and this opportunity was just too attractive to pass
up....its certainly easier on the pocket book than installing a full blown four
square out in a salt marsh.
We needed five work parties to make the station ready this year. A new yardarm
and fresh 175M nylon pull ropes were installed on the 100M tower up at 80 meters
elevation. Another work party was dedicated to installing the TX antenna, which
wasn't as simple as it sounds, since we had to determine by trial and error
where the wires would interweave between the tower guy sets. This ultimately
took nearly two days effort to get right. We had extensive beverage antenna
damage over the summer as the result of many Noreaster storms and two
hurricanes. Many downed trees in the path of our RX wires had to be dealt
with. Another work party was devoted to fixing our backup Inverted L TX
antenna and installing a remote short 7M tall vertical RX antenna 950 meters
from the main TX array. Two days before the contest W2CG come over after work
and set up our network and logging system (we use 4 computers running
Win-Test). Finally on the day of the contest one work grouop finished erecting
and did preliminary tuning of the main TX array while the inside team were busy
installing the maze of wires, filters and switching systems that make it all
work in the shack. The night before one of our K3 radios came up lame.....so
we had to press the 756ProII into service.
After last year's 160 season we decided to invest in an ACOM 2S1 switch to
faciliate sharing one amplifier between our run and mult operating positions.
This turned out to be a huge improvement over the prior switching systems used
and provided absolute lockout protection.
With the bell approaching we were still testing RX antennas and completing
other station preparations. The short vertical came up deaf, but the beverages
seemed to be hearing exceptionally well. Our TX antenna NE and WSW driven
elements were somewhat mistuned but not so much that we couldn't get by for the
first evening. Overall things weren't perfect but sort of ready.
The Contest
This turned out to be a completely quiet weekend in SNJ. No static crashes
whatsoever, and no line noise of significance either. But the band had that
'dead' sound Friday evening, which turned out to be the dreaded absorption
would play havoc with long distance communications most of the weekend, but
particularly on Friday night.
As is usually the case the first hour produced the highest rate of the weekend,
this time 154 Q's in 58 minutes (we started two mins. late). In the first 17
minutes 7 EU stations called in, they weren't especially loud but solid copy.
Then Murphy made a rude visit to 180 Murphy Drive, the NE sloper flamed out,
something was causing the amplifer to trip, the antenna was rendered useless.
We switched to the WSW sloper and continued on, but only 3 more EU called the
first hour. Our primary offensive weapon was disabled, and we started losing
ground to the competition. Not exactly the start we'd hoped for.
We ordered out for pizza and refortified ourselves, keeping the run station
going, and supplimented with mult position qsos another 100 hour was in the
log.
During the 3rd hour W2CG and I ventured out into the marsh to try to find and
fix the NE antenna problem. Its a 175M trek through the muck and water....not
particularly pleasant in the dark, but at least it was a calm dry night. The
good news, the antenna hadn't fallen down, the bad news that meant we had a
feedline problem somewhere. Fortunately I found a 'stinky' connector at a
junction just 10M up the tower. After three trips back and forth between the
shack and tower, we finally had the problem fixed but by now the damage was
done. With taking the station off for testing and other interruptions, our
rate had droped under 60, we were loosing ground fast to the other guys. And
to add insult to injury, only 9 more EU stations were worked the first night.
Then we had to contend with an imaginary wall set up by the propagaton gods at
the Nevada/California line. For hours we couldn't buy a QSO with a CA station,
yet we could hear our left coast buddies totally Q5. After so many "CQ in your
face" situations, we were getting very discouraged. The multiplier window was
all WHITE on the W6 line for hours. By Saturday morning we were still missing
EB, LAX and SB. We were very glad to have Jorge, CX6VM call in, and it always
amazes me how loud CE1/K7CA can be from so far away. The mystique of Top Band
communications is alive and will.
Following the contest on GetScores has its good and bad aspects. Some recent
software upgrades are apparently incompatible with our version of Win-Test so
we couldn't autopost. But watching as N0NI, NX5B and K1LZ ran up huge leads on
us in both QSOs and multipliers was more than a little deflating. At one point
we were as much as 70,000 points behind. We just had to hang in there and
experience that Yogi Berra moment ("its not over till its over"). Went to
breakfast Saturday morning resigned to stick with it. We came up with a list
of work items to complete before night fall, and hoped the tide would turn in
our favor later Saturday evening. Our host N2HM came by at sunrise to keep the
station on the air through the morning hours. As it turns out those 40 or so
hard earned daytime QSOs Bob logged might might end up the difference with our
MA rivals.
We retuned the TX antenna, found a broken wire in the short vertical matching
box, and installed a more substancial anchor in the marsh for the NE element
under perfectly clear skies. About an hour before dark we started operating
again. During the 2200Z hour we more than doubled our our first day EU total
to 40, conditions seemed promising. Then at 0230 someone flipped a switch and
a long and sometimes loud string of EU callers began flooding in. W2RQ arrived
on-site at 0400 and ran the board for the next three hours, adding about 120
more five pointers to the total. We were in the hunt again, now <10K behind the
K1LZ team.
Coming up on sunrise we knew we had a chance to have come all the way back, if
we could work a KL7, a JA and one more mult. We got all three and ended the
operation at 1300Z. We'd had had one of the most exciting 160 weekends ever.
Thanks to everyone for the QSOs.....to the guys at W8JI, K1LZ, N0NI, NX5B, and
all the other multis who make the 160 contests so competitive, to our hosts at
WYRS-FM who make their facilities available to our group, and the members of
the SJDXA with whom we partner during the 160 season.
See everyone again in the TBDC and CQ160 CW.
73,
John, W2GD for the 160 Team
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