CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW
Call: K6SE
Operator(s): K6SE
Station: K6SE
Class: SO HP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 21
QSOs: 723 States/Provinces: 57 Countries: 19 Score: 173,660
Comments:
Used a balloon-supported 1/4-wave vertical at a dry salt lake bed in southern
California. This site is extremely quiet, free from any man-made electrical
noise. Station was located in a tent trailer and powered by a 4 kw gasoline
generator.
At the start of the contest, about 3 hours before my sunset, the only stations
heard were the big gun signals from close-in states. The band began to open to
the east coast about 1 hour before sunset and condx throughout the first night
did not appear to be up to normal.
Fired up the generator about 1 hour before sunset the second night and was
pleased to hear the eastern stations pounding in, hoping this was a harbinger
of good condx for the second night. However, at sunset the wind began blowing
hard intermittently, causing the balloon vertical to vary from near-horizontal
to near-vertical. This caused the tuning of the amp to vary drastically,
necessitating frequent retuning of the amp. Finally threw in the towel because
of the wind and decided to take a nap. Anybody know of an amp which auto-tunes
while working a contest?
When I woke up at about 0700Z, the winds were calm, so fired up the staion
again. I immediately listened in the DX window hoping to hear some western EU,
but none were heard. What WAS heard, however was QRN due to thunderstorm
static, presumably from the Pacific (no directional receiving antennas were
used - only the vertical). This QRN persisted throughout the remainder of the
contest. My apologies to those who called me if I couldn't pull them out of
the noise.
Another contributor to hearing weak signals was the appalling number of
stations using FT-1000MPs without any key click reduction modification
installed. These stations, if they were within +/- 2 kHz of a weak signal made
it very difficult or impossible to copy the weak signal. It is imperitive that
these FT-1000MP users install the INRAD keying improvement mod or the W8JI key
click mod in their rigs to alleviate this problem in future CW contests.
DX worked were one each BV, EA8, FY, HI, HR, KP4, PY0F, UA0, V3, V4, and VP5.
Also 2 PYs, 2 ZFs, 3 KL7s, 3 XEs, 4 KH6s, 4 VKs, 4 ZLs, and 69 JAs. Was hoping
for a better opening to JA, but even normally loud JA7NI was weak.
Despite the problems, this was the best score I ever acheived in this contest.
I attribute this to the location and NOT to my operating ability. The pure,
moist salt ground has proven to me that the ground conductivity directly under
a vertical (in the form of radials) is not the only important thing -- the far
field soil conductivity is a big factor also.
73, hope to CU again next year from the same QTH, de Earl, K6SE
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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