ARRL 160-Meter Contest
Call: AA4LR
Operator(s): AA4LR
Station: AA4LR
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: GA
Operating Time (hrs): 5.0
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 292 Sections = 57 Countries = 2 Total Score = 34,810
Club: South East Contest Club
Comments:
Equipment:
Elecraft K2/100 w/ KAT100 running 80-100 watts
15m Shunt-Fed Tower with 25 60 foot radials.
Comments:
A part-time effort here. Had a blast Friday night calling CQ and
running at 70-100 q/hr. Worked 44 states the first night in just 4
hours. Missed only RI, ND, WY, MT, HI and AK. Heard W7SE in WY both
nights, and spent several minutes calling him. He apparently was
deaf, because all I got was an "AA"? out of him.
Since I was having such a blast running, I didn't hunt around for
multipliers too much. Only DX was P40 and OK1, which I worked as I
passed by the DX window.
An antenna problem forced me to QRT after about an hour on the second
night. I use an L-network to match the shunt on 160m, and then bend
the resonant frequency with the tuner. The first night, I was calling
CQ around 1820 kHz for about five minutes, when the SWR jumped up.
Antenna analyzer showed the resonant frequency shifted from about
1825 to 1875 kHz. I compensated by moving up to around 1870 kHz to
call CQ.
Second night, similar problem happened. After about an hour calling
CA on 1825 kHz, SWR jumped up. Resonant frequency was now about 1970
kHz. I went out and tried to re-adjust the matching network, but
couldn't get the frequency down below about 1930 kHz. I kept running
out of capacitance.
Worked lots of SECC members, including K4BAI, W8JI, KD3GC, K4EA,
K4HAL, and several others.
Lots of fun. Hopefully, I can fix the antenna problem before the Stew
Perry. I'm tremendously impressed with how well the shunt-fed tower
works. Although it is just over 1/10 wavelength high, I could work
just about everything I heard, and calling CQ was very effective,
even with 100 watts.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/
3830score/
Bill Coleman, AA4LR, PP-ASEL Mail: aa4lr at arrl.net
Quote: "Not within a thousand years will man ever fly!"
-- Wilbur Wright, 1901
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