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W4ATC@NCSU CQWW SSB M/S (Long story)

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Subject: W4ATC@NCSU CQWW SSB M/S (Long story)
From: psoper@encore.com (Pete Soper)
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 1996 10:33:23 EST
     CQ WORLD WIDE DX CONTEST -- 1996

 Call: W4ATC                    Location: NCSU, Raleigh, NC, USA
 Mode: SSB                      Category: Multi Single

 Ops: KS4XG (Pete, 46), N3QYE (Jim, 32), KT4LD (Andrew, 16)
 
 Score to be credited to Potomac Valley Radio Club

 BAND   QSO QSO PTS  PTS/QSO ZONES COUNTRIES 
 ----   --- -------  ------- ----- ---------
 160      0      0   0.00    0     0        nothing
  80     49     99   2.02   11    29        Vee @ 80'
  40     83    220   2.65   18    50        2 Dipoles @ 75'
  20    460   1094   2.38   36   138        TH6 @ 85'
  15    189    529   2.80   22    69        TH6 @ 85'
  10     17     48   2.82    5     8        TH6 @ 85'
---------------------------------------------------

Totals  798   1990   2.49   92   294  =>  768,140


Total operating time: 48 

Run station: IC735 + 4x811A amp putting out 600(80) to 950(20) watts
             Rad Shack DSP, CT 9 with rig control.
Mult station (receive only): TS820S, 15 and 20m Dunestars.

Excuses: A dog ate our cookbook.
         Forgot to stock up on pork rinds.

Story:

This started out a couple months back when Jim invited me to use the 
North Carolina State University club station for a single op CQWW 
effort. The club station is at the top of one of the EE dept buildings,
a 60 foot high monster with an overall roof area of just under an acre but 
with a big "hole" over a courtyard in the middle. Jim had overseen getting a
TH6 mounted to an elevator shaft extending above the roof some months before
and it seemed that with a few clever wire antennas and an amplifier I'd be 
able to get out pretty well and get some good experience.  (I've been 
licensed about 1 1/2 years and consider myself a contesting novice).

After starting on the wires Jim expressed interest in taking part in the 
contest so we aimed for a Multi/Single effort and we steered the next
couple of PVRC meetings to take place at NCSU to be sure to get him
in as a member. (Jim's been licensed for about 3 years but has less
contesting experience than me). As I schemed up an antenna strategy and
tried to wear out my copy of EZNEC we began building supports on the roof and
I searched for an amplifier. After getting great advice from the contesting
reflector about a choice I found a Clipperton-L and did an overnight drive 
to Atlanta and back to get it to NCSU in time to try out during the Cal QSO
party for a shakedown. I wish I'd looked "under the hood" before driving
it back, however, as when I got the thing home at 4am I popped the lid off 
only to find portions of the bandswitch were missing (cooked). The nice 
thing about driving 800 miles in one session is that it makes you tired 
enough to withstand this kind of disappointment <g>.

KI4HN heard of our predicament and lent us his Clipperton for the latter half 
of CQP and we had no trouble learning to use it. The TH6 accepted the power 
without complaint and no side effects with other equipment were noted. But 
after a week we were once again amp-challenged as my efforts to get my 
Clipperton repaired didn't work out and I had to return it for a cheerful
refund. At this point Jim had arranged for the NCSU club to buy an amp from an 
estate sale. When it came out that the amp was homebrew many alarm bells rang 
in my head but I only voiced moderate concern to Jim at the time. I wish now 
I'd used the line from the Monty Python film ("Run Away! Run Away!"). When the 
amp arrived at the school's station I put pursuit of my own amp on hold and 
concentrated on the antennas. 

Meanwhile the antenna plan before the "big SWR letdown" was as follows:

Run station:
10-20 meters - TH6
40 meters    - dipole facing E/W, extended double zepp to Europe @ 75 feet
80 meters    - two element wire yagi to Europe at 75 feet
160 meters   - punt (could not find anything that played with EZNEC)

Mult station:
all bands    - 102' dipole (with a major 20m lobe toward Europe) @ 75 feet

We put up four 21 foot poles with pulleys on top along the roof perimeter wall 
with brackets in such a way that wires strung from the two pairs would be 
exactly broadside toward northern Italy. We didn't spend much money on those 
poles and were over-optimistic about the load they would take. Turned out the 
pull from the weight of an 80m wire dipole and its feedline was bent them like
pole vault poles. So the EDZ wasn't going to work without reinforcement which
we added the next weekend. But the bad news was that the 80m dipole wouldn't 
tune properly. It's feedpoint impedance was "impossible" until I realized what
a massive collection of metal was positioned close to it. But since we didn't
have a tuner that would handle high power we had to have a low SWR, so we were 
stuck. The wire yagi for 80 went out the window and we went to plan B, which 
was a simple dipole positioned closer to the middle of the roof so it was
mostly over the courtyard.

The EDZ couldn't be finished until a few days before the contest. Big surprise
number two came as I found that the matching section and inductive stub
combination that EZNEC predicted would give a 150khz bandwidth at the 2:1 SWR
points turned into a 40khz bandwidth in the real world of many I-beams. Darn. 

In the meantime we'd had an NC chapter PVRC meeting and Howie, K4PQL had 
encouraged us to make the 80m antenna an inverted V hung from close ot the
TH6 tower. This provided to be a great idea although it took a lot of 
compromises to baby the SWR down to 2.3 (around 3800). After flirting with 
the idea of trimming and folding the EDZ up into a delta or diamond loop we 
looked at our watches and simply took it down and planned for a dipole to go in
front of and slightly below the 80m V by running a support line from the tower
to a corner of the roof. I told myself at the time (Thursday night) that 
since I was knocking off work after lunch on Friday there would be time to
make the support out of #10 THHN and both support the dipole from above
by a short length of dacron and use the #10 as a 1/4wl sloper for 160.

Meanwhile on the amplifier front an initial attempt to run it resulted in a
blown capacitor. A trip to the local amp repair shop got not just a 
replacement but a number of improvements and a keying relay that would isolate 
us from the 120v DC used by the amp's relay. Unfortunately we missed an 
instruction and blew another capacitor. It went back to the shop for what
we hoped would be a simple fix but instead the amp was there until 
late Friday afternoon. When it arrived at the station mention was made of
a problem with 15m. I assumed at the time this was something that could be 
avoided with care.

As the final few days of preparation were taking place we added another 
operator. Andrew had asked about planned CQWW activity in North 
Carolina on the contesting reflector and I sent him an invitation to the 
PVRC meeting. Just before the meeting he asked to join us for the contest 
and after worrying for a second about the logistics we took him on
enthusiastically. Andrew's been licensed 4 years and contesting for 5,
with operating experience well beyond that of Jim and I. Around this time we 
discovered the club's IC725 had a failed AF circuit from amp misadventure
#1 so we asked Andrew to bring his TS820S as a mult/backup rig.

The day of the contest I hauled the rest of my stuff to the university and 
began building the stations. We'd decided the previous night to bag the EDZ 
and just put up a second dipole for 40m. Meanwhile Jim was camped at the amp 
repair shop and Andrew was in a neighboring town waiting for Jim to give him a 
ride.  So I built the second 40m dipole, mentally tossed the 160 antenna
back into the bit bucket and trimmed my nails with my teeth.

We finally got together around 5pm and the real adventure began. Between the 
pressing need to erect the second 40m antenna and install a remote antenna 
switch and the need to check out the amplifier in situ Jim and I had our hands 
full as Andrew helped out wherever he could. I focused on establishing some
amp settings so Andrew would at least have the tribander and one 40m dipole
at the start of the contest. The amp wouldn't operate at all on 15 or 10 meters,
going into a fast self-cycling of the keying relay until the HV was turned 
off.  Lack of power on 10 didn't bother me but I was heartbroken about having 
to operate barefoot on 15. I voiced concern but Jim dismissed it as no big
deal and Andrew laughed ("you don't need an amp on 15 meters"). However 
I'm convinced that power on 15 meters for a few hours each day might have 
helped us run effectively and gotten us to our goal of 1000 Qs.

This was about the time I realized the true meaning of the "multi" in 
"multi/single" as our lack of experience working with each other under the 
gun became very clear. I had really blown it big time, grossly overestimating
what we could accomplish before the contest started and I made things a
lot worse by changing my mind every hour as I realized we had to scale back
even more than I'd thought the previous hour. This stressed the hell out of
Jim and we both took turns snapping at Andrew. Luckily we all realized we
were in a feedback loop and lightened up and soon after we got the final 
compromise antennas in place and the stress level dropped drastically. We had 
no packet, no mult station, no backup computer, and it was soon time for Jim
and Andrew to hit the sack as Jim had to work at the university the next day
and I'd promised Andrew's folks he'd get some sleep. But thanks to Jim we had an
amp and good antennas for 40 and 80 and thanks to Andrew we had a lot of Q's
(albeit mostly 0 pointers up to the second hour when I spotted the CT
summary box and embarked on a campaign to convince him that US Qs are
worthless except as mults).

So they took off and I took over to troll 40 and 80 and then gathered up
initial mults on 20m. I had a few minutes of delightful fun playing leapfrog 
with W1IHN as we raced up 20m meters doing S&P when it opened across Europe.
Throughout the contest I found myself consulting the detailed bandplan that 
K3ZO had taken the time to make for us. I had to make adjustments for our
slight difference in antennas <g> but found Fred's information great as a 
general guide.

But as I operated on 20m I noticed a growing fraction of the time I went deaf
when the amp was unkeyed and I had to slap the footswitch to get the receive
signal back. I thought about the keying relay being dirty but it was 
brand new and sealed and this didn't jibe with the fact that it never happened
on 80 meters. I never figured out the cause of this and it was a plague 
that got worse during Saturday and stuck with us on 20 and 40 for the rest of 
the contest. But after a day or two to think about it I suspect I caused
this disaster too. The amp had no standby switch and I decided this was a
vital feature to prevent damage from operator error. So Friday afternoon
I cobbled a 'standby/operate' switch together and mounted it next to the
amp. This extended the keying line by about 18 inches and I suspect the RF
induction that may have caused the "minor problem on 15 meters" at the shop
was turned into a major problem at our station. However a few turns through
four big ferrite had no effect on the sensitivity to the problem, so I'm
left with doubt. 

Andrew came back loaded for bear Saturday morning and got good results on 
20 and 15 while I snoozed on the roof for 3 hours. It think it took 11 seconds 
to fall asleep after I moved away from the TH6 "bird squatting zone" (direct
hit to the chest right after I laid down!).

Saturday afternoon got the packet station going 
and we saw our first ever DX spots in realtime. We made good use of the spots
for a while but soon a flurry of rude language showed up on the packet
terminal.  (We didn't know how to filter out all but spots). In the midst
of this a message scrolled by that ended with "de ks4xg". I was mystified
by this as it appeared somebody was pretending to be me. After more spots
came through a big argument seemed to break out on the packet followed by
very harsh language appeared and then connection went away as if the network 
"plug" had been yanked. We checked the packet from time to time but didn't get 
it running again until Sunday and at that point a different program was used
that didn't buffer the text. So we had to watch it and write down spots fast
before they were gone forever. The Sunday spots provided a handful of nice 
mults but because of our various problems I'd describe our effort overall
as unassisted about 90% of the time. (Sorry PVRC! We know you were really 
shoveling those spots to the southern fringe).

While the packet was working Jim got his first real shift on the radio and as 
the contest progressed he became more and more eager to operate. As I could see
very early that my rate stunk compared to Andrew's and I was doing all the
late night hours I began giving up more and more time to the two of them and
I think we all ended up happy with the time we got. Actually the truth is that
Andrew wanted all 48 hours and never stopped looking for a way to jump in
the chair. He did tell me up front he is very competitive but I didn't
realize this had an implication for fellow team members <g>.

Saturday night Jim got the remote antenna switch working which meant I
wouldn't have to kill myself sprinting to the roof and back every time I 
wanted to switch antennas for 40 and 80 meters. He also put a dummy load
in place so it was much more convenient to do tuning.  Saturday night 
we worked out a schedule that went to Sunday noon but then this went 
out the window as Andrew made the case for an early morning Pacific 
run on 20m (and of course wanted to do the run). So we went with this and
Jim used my sleeping bag as I helped Andrew. There followed the most
amazing 40 minutes of operating this newbie Ham has witnessed to date
as Andrew jumped onto the back of a Tiger. Here is his log verbatim:

27-Oct-96  0553    481  14.195 VK3DXI       59  30                3
27-Oct-96  0555    482  14.195 VK5GN        59  30                3
27-Oct-96  0556    483  14.195 A35RK        59  32        A3      3
27-Oct-96  0558    484  14.195 T30DW        59  31        T30     3
27-Oct-96  0559    485  14.195 YB9HML       59  28    28  YB      3
27-Oct-96  0559    486  14.195 VK6VE        59  29    29          3
27-Oct-96  0600    487  14.195 JR1BLX       59  25                3
27-Oct-96  0600    488  14.195 DU2HAZ       59  27    27  DU      3
27-Oct-96  0601    489  14.195 3W5FM        59  26    26  3W      3
27-Oct-96  0601    490  14.195 9M8TC        59  28        9M6     3
27-Oct-96  0602    491  14.195 ZL2VS        59  32                3
27-Oct-96  0602    492  14.195 ZL1AMO       59  32                3
27-Oct-96  0603    493  14.195 VK4QT        59  30                3
27-Oct-96  0603    494  14.195 VK7RX        59  30                3
27-Oct-96  0604    495  14.195 ZL1BOS       59  32                3
27-Oct-96  0604    496  14.195 VK0WH        59  30        VK0M    3
27-Oct-96  0605    497  14.195 KH0AA        59  27        KH0     3
27-Oct-96  0606    498  14.195 VR6DX        59  32        VR6     3
27-Oct-96  0606    499  14.195 FO5IW        59  32        FO      3
27-Oct-96  0607    500  14.195 ZL9GD        59  32        ZL9     3
27-Oct-96  0607    501  14.195 WP4U         59  08        KP4     2
27-Oct-96  0608    502  14.195 BV2VT        59  24    24  BV      3
27-Oct-96  0608    503  14.195 T33B         59  31        T33     3
27-Oct-96  0609    504  14.195 VK9XZ        59  29        VK9X    3
27-Oct-96  0609    505  14.195 NH2G         59  27        KH2     3
27-Oct-96  0610    506  14.195 KH3AF        59  31        KH3     3
27-Oct-96  0611    507  14.195 C21DJ        59  31        C2      3
27-Oct-96  0613    508  14.243 KH6FKG       59  31                3
27-Oct-96  0614    509  14.181 VU2JPS       59  22    22  VU      3
27-Oct-96  0615    510  14.203 9V1LR        59  28        9V      3
27-Oct-96  0616    511  14.185 UT0D         59  16    -DUPLICATE- 0
27-Oct-96  0617    512  14.180 VK9CR        59  29        VK9C    3
27-Oct-96  0618    513  14.203 JA1KSO       59  25                3
27-Oct-96  0618    514  14.220 BY1DD        59  24        BY      3
27-Oct-96  0619    515  14.221 HS0ZAK       59  26        HS      3
27-Oct-96  0620    516  14.225 AP2JZB       59  21    21  AP      3
27-Oct-96  0620    517  14.228 RA0LWZ       59  19    19  UA9     3
27-Oct-96  0621    518  14.237 JA9LJS       59  25                3
27-Oct-96  0621    519  14.237 P29P         59  28        P2      3
27-Oct-96  0622    520  14.231 FR5DX        59  39    39  FR      3
27-Oct-96  0623    521  14.236 V63T         59  27        V6      3
27-Oct-96  0623    522  14.236 XZ1N         59  26        XZ      3
27-Oct-96  0623    523  14.236 VS6BR        59  24        VS6     3
27-Oct-96  0624    524  14.236 T20U         59  31        T2      3
27-Oct-96  0626    525  14.267 VK8AAT       59  29                3
27-Oct-96  0626    526  14.253 JT1T         59  23    23  JT      3
27-Oct-96  0627    527  14.185 XE1NLD       59  06                2
27-Oct-96  0628    528  14.181 HC8N         59  10        HC8     3
27-Oct-96  0628    529  14.186 TI9JJP       59  07        TI9     2
27-Oct-96  0629    530  14.188 HK0/KH8AM    59  07        HK0/a   2
27-Oct-96  0630    531  14.181 5W1AU        59  32        5W      3
27-Oct-96  0630    532  14.181 V85LX        59  28        V8      3
27-Oct-96  0631    533  14.181 JL1UJG       59  25                3

After this Andrew slept in a student study lounge while I worked 40
and 80 and finished the mult station, which still hadn't been put online.
Had I known that the stub filters for the run station's amp would prove
ineffective I'd have bagged hopes of transmit capability and set up the 
820 for receive only much earlier (sigh). By the time I had made the stubs 
it was time to wake Jim up and so we tested them as he worked the 20m 
opening to Europe. No effect at all, even though the Autek showed an
impedance of 0-1 ohms at the harmonic frequencies. But we could still listen
between the S5 "fuzz" bursts from the run station and we ended up making
a little use of of the 820 to check band activity and find the occasional
new mult.

I woke Andrew up so that both he and Jim got 4.5 hours sleep (the
"90 minute multiples" strategy that W1IHN stressed at the PVRC meeting was 
VERY GOOD ADVICE). Then I konked out for 90 minutes and when I came back 
they were making good progress on 15 meters with Jim knocking off
contacts at a high rate doing S&P. When the packet spots resumed later
in the day we worked hard to use them but once again thrashed over a 
protocol that was effective and didn't distract the operator. There 
followed a string of South American contacts on 15 and 20, then back to 
Europe on 20. Jim got almost all the 10 meter mults before they went
back to 20, made a short visit to 40 and then stayed on 20 for the 
remainder of the contest with a KH4 bagged at 2359. We listened to 
3827.5 and tried to get our score listed but couldn't break the pileup 
before jamming broke up the party.

It was clear that Andrew had a special knack for getting through. This
was best demonstrated after Jim had spent 3-4 minutes trying to bag 
JW5VK (Z40, Svalbard) for one of the last double mults available to us
on 20 meters. We decided to let Andrew try to crack the pileup and sure 
enough, by raising his voice to perfectly mimic a YL he punched through 
in seconds.

As the contest wound down Jim and I reflected on the homebrew amp.
The receive de-sense and incessant need to slap the footswitch to
get our ears back had been a constant torture, but there was no doubt
the power had made a huge difference on the bands where the silly thing
would work at all. On the spur of the moment Jim changed my suggestion
of "R.F. Ubar" to "R.F. ubar alles" and we had named the beast. 

When lending me his 'L KI4HN invited me to go to N4ZC for the contest,
saying that even a very green novice like me could be free of 
embarrassment and learn a lot. This created one of the big conflicts of
my hobby thus far, as all my instincts told me that the N4ZC environment
was just exactly what I needed to improve my skills, even if came 
from sweeping the floor and watching the other guys operate. However
I couldn't let N3QYE and the PVRC down and decided that hopefully I 
can get another invitation next year. But this led me to read the 
writeup of the N4ZC station in a recent issue of "NCJ" and I was struck 
by Roger's philosophy of "grace and speed" and his use of a "cookbook" to 
help with the operating procedures at the station. By the time CQWW
was over I was wishing I had been able to read that book, as it was 
clear that the principle source of tension between the three of us 
came from clumsy interactions that upset each guy's expectations about
the next minute, hour, or day.  Any newcomers out there considering 
a seat of the pants multi/single like we just did should strongly 
consider doing a small contest together first to establish a working 
relationship and sort out the protocols because multi/single does not 
mean multi-singleop. And by all means, find the guys that know and
ask them many questions!

Our plan now is to QSL all the DX contacts with DX routes via the buro 
after looking for routes for a month or so.  The hope is that Jim's 
successors at the university club will get pleasant surprises from far
away places in coming years that may encourage them to look beyond 
their repeaters.

In summary: Wow!

Many thanks to K4PQL, KE3Q, W1IHN, KI4HN, K3ZO, AA4NC and others who 
we might have forgotten who helped us out directly or through frequent
encouraging words both local and DX.

Regards,
Pete KS4XG
(with input from Jim and Andrew)

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