ARRL DX Contest, CW
Call: WT1T
Operator(s): K1TWF,W1ES,K1WD,WO1N
Station: K1TWF
Class: M/S HP
QTH: EMA
Operating Time (hrs): 48
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
----------------------
160: 38 31
80: 164 60
40: 473 75
20: 924 89
15: 803 101
10: 831 95
----------------------
Total: 3233 451 = 4,363,425
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
Equipment: FT1000D, Alpha 89, TH7@60', 40-2CD@55',T12@50',Phased vert on 80M
Shunt fed tower on 160M
Our esteemed Team TWooF leader (AKA K1TWF) has managed to be so busy with
amateur radio that he rarely operates anymore, particularly from his own
station. So, the last time his shack was fired up was last years ARRL DX CW.
If you remember that story, it ended with two pretty trashed amplifiers, the
AL1200 QSK totally shot and a balky SB1000 backup. So in the weeks before the
contest the YCCC email reflector was blasted with messages from me looking for
documentation for the AL1200 QSK card. With help from a couple of members and
the Ameritron web site I had documentation in hand. We did some
troubleshooting and decided the op-amp was shot. Trips to the local parts
stores were productive but it still did not appear to be right and further
troubleshooting would be necessary. We found a toasted 2.5mh choke in the
SB1000. Replacing that with a random choke lying around the shack allowed us to
get maybe 500Watts out of it. Things were looking bleak. At our local club
meeting a few weeks prior a fellow contester hearing of our plight offered up
an Alpha 89. Excuse me,did I hear that right? You bet. One sweet amp.
It was delivered the night before the contest so we huddled around it with the
instruction book trying to decide if we should be reading the section on
"Tuning the Amp up to 1500 Watts" or the other section "Tuning the Amp for 2500
Watts" or similarly titled. Discretion played the better part of valor and we
stuck with the 1500W section....
Contest start had K1TWF operating in his tuxedo since I was a little late and
he had some high society affair that involved wine, cheese and libraries to
attend. I took the station at about 10 past and proceeded to rip off a 102 hour
on 20M. K1WD showed up and we swapped on and off basically until dawn between
the two of us. We tended to the low bands which was probably a mistake, we
probably could have had better rate on 20M as it was open all night. We managed
a 98 at 0300Z on 40M so all in all the open was one of our best ever.
By 1000Z K1TWF was back in action. He moved to 20M. That began a progression
of high rate hours between 100 and 122. We've got the
operator-swap-while-running routine pretty smooth having worked together for
almost a decade. At one point K1TWF was ready to hand the controls over to me.
First thing, enter OPON. Why won't the OPON screen come up? Turns out the
keyboard ENTER key decided to go balky. Now Mike is showing 150 on the last 10
counter. He calmly pulls out his ever present Swiss Army knife, pops out the
key, blows it out and puts it back together without letting the rate fall off.
That fixed I hop in the chair and take it away. I wish we had that on video...
When the afternoon doldrums set in I was doing some band hopping looking for
mults (yes I know, if you aren't running you are loosing). I made a band change
and noticed the amp was a little hard to tune up, but eventually it did while
connected to the TH7. I work a few stations and flipped over to the T12 to work
a Caribbean mult. Hit the key and slam! Silence! Ohhhhhh crap what happened?
The Alpha shut down totally! I felt like a 12 year old that just did something
real bad and was trying to figure out how could I get out of this one. Turns
out when I changed bands I didn't move the band switch all the way to 10M, it
was set to 12M. The Alpha has so much self protection built in it just shut
down when it wasn?t happy with the match presented by the T12.
Did the 3 minute power up drill and all was fine. In the after contest re-cap
it turns out a couple of the crew admitted to doing the same thing. Boy are we
tough on amps...
The second day was more of the same. There were large stretches of time where
you would continuously have 3 or more stations replying to your CQ?s. Our best
hour during the Sunday European opening was 1300Z with a 139. I wish we had
recorded this because I can't imagine it getting much better.
All in all our best effort from K1TWF?s station ever. A big helping of thanks
to KB1PZ for coming up with one nice little Alpha 89 in the nick of time and
N1TT who showed up Saturday evening to cook us a gourmet meal and cheer us on.
73,
Ken
WO1N
For Team TWooF
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