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[3830] P40W ARRL DX SSB SOAB HP Story

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Subject: [3830] P40W ARRL DX SSB SOAB HP Story
From: w2gd@hotmail.com (John Crovelli)
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 12:19:06 PST
             ARRL INTERNATIONAL DX CONTEST -- 1998

      Call: P40W (W2GD opr.)         Country:  Aruba
      Mode: SSB                      Category: SOAB HP


     BAND     QSO    QSO PTS    STATES/PROV    ANTENNAS

    160      165      495          36    Inverted V @ 65 ft.
     80      449     1347          55    Inverted V @ 68 ft.
     40      607     1821          55    2 ele Force 12 @ 72 ft.
     20     1598     4794          59    4 ele Force 12 @ 72 ft.
     15     2026     6078          59    5 ele Force 12 @ 86 ft.
     10     2450     7350          59    5 ele Force 12 @ 79 ft.
     -----------------------------------

   Totals   7295 Q  21885 Pts.    323 Mult.  =  7,068,855 Points

Operating Time:  40.7 hours per CT 

Equipment Description:  Antennas listed above plus the following:
TS930S, Alpha 87A, DVK,  486 Laptop with CT9,and two rx antennas: 
300 foot beverage Northwest (300 degrees), and
300 foot beverage North (355 degrees)

Club Affiliation:  FRANKFORD RADIO CLUB

QSL VIA N2MM

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 
* * *


GETTING READY - A SHORT STORY


TUESDAY:  Got up at 4:30 a.m. to make the 7 o'clock flight from Newark 
to San Juan (thanks go to Pat, N2ZVY for taking me to the airport at 
such an early hour).  Arrived on Aruba on schedule at 3:20 p.m. local 
time.  Went directly from the airport to town to get my license and to 
pick up some food/drink.  Got to the station location in Santa Cruz 
about 4:30 p.m. and found the 160 and 40 meter antennas broken.  Weather 
conditions were extremely dry and windy.  It hadn't rained on Aruba for 
nearly 4 months and everything seemed to have a coating of salt brine 
and dirt.  The connector on the balun of the 160 inverted V had totally 
disintegrated due to salt corrosion.  One of the capacitive loading 
wires on the 40M driven element was hanging lose, caused by a salt 
induced flashover on the fiberglass support rod (a problem left over 
from CQWW CW).  In general it was very warm, dusty, windy and humid.  
Yuck. 

Did the easy stuff first.  Fired up the old TS930.  It worked fine.  
Installed the power transformer in the Alpha 87A but let things dry out 
a bit?.the temperature change from the plane ride always causes 
everything to "sweat", especially the power transformer.  I decided to 
let it adjust to the local temperature conditions for a while and dry 
out naturally.  In the meantime ran through the bands checking SWR 
curves.  All the antennas except 160 and 40 looked normal.  Before 
sundown got the two beverage antenna feedlines deployed and one beverage 
connected.  Jacobo, P43P, stopped by and we went off to dinner.  On the 
way back I could see power lines arching everywhere due to the salt 
buildup.  About 10 p.m. fired up the Alpha 87A.  After only 3 tries it 
came up fault free and I kept it continuously powered up until Monday 
morning (just in case).  This particular amplifier is very sensitive to 
humidity and its sensors have produced false readings in the past, I 
surmise due to moisture.  The Alpha really worked great the rest of the 
week!

WEDNESDAY: Put up a second beverage, fixed the 160 meter inverted V, and 
adjusted the 80M antenna for the phone band.  It was hot and dusty work.  
The wind was way too strong to even think about fixing the 40M beam.  
Took a beach break late afternoon.  Wednesday evening attended the Aruba 
Amateur Radio Club meeting.  Carl, AI6V/P40V and I discussed various 
aspects of contesting and answered lots of questions.  The club members 
have become very interested in contesting and many local P43 callsigns 
(like P43A, P43E, P43P, P43T, P43W, etc.) are appearing in contest logs 
much more frequently.  Look for a big effort from this bunch in the IARU 
under the call P44HQ.

THURSDAY:   This morning was the point of no return for fixing the 40M 
driven element.  With the grace of the man upstairs the day dawned 
cloudy and the winds were down a bit.  The 40 and 20 meter yagi share a 
common 30 foot boom.  The fix required removal of the first 20M 
director, disconnecting the beam from the mast, lowering the antenna 
about 5 feet using a hand winch, then pulling the beam into the tower to 
reach the 40M element which is ten feet away.  It all went pretty 
smoothly but the antenna wanted to wonder quite a bit in the wind.  I 
replaced the fiberglass rod and then inserted small insulators between 
the capacitive loading wires and the rod to prevent a future occurance.  
I was also very pleased to see that the replacement wire Force 12 
supplied has held up very well after over a year of exposure, with no 
corrosion found..  This job took about 3.5 hours of tower time and I was 
glad to get down and off to the beach for R & R.

FRIDAY:   I did some human engineering in the shack, worked a few 
hundred stations on cw, then took a trip to the beach.  On the return 
stopped by to see the QTH of Jacobo, P43P (formerly P43HOT).  He has a 
great location on the north side of the island on a hill overlooking the 
water from NE to NW.  His outstanding single band low power score on 15M 
with a relatively low and small antenna tells me this will be a super 
station someday soon.  Got home and managed to take a 2 hour nap before 
making final preparations.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 
* * * * *

THE CONTEST - Another SHORT STORY

The hour by hour breakdown sheet below really says it all:

HOUR  160      80       40       20       15       10    HR TOT CUM TOT


0   .....    .....    .....   125/38   175/36    .....  300/74  300/74 
1     .        .       1/1    181/11      .        .    182/12  482/86 
2   23/14      .     112/29      .        .        .    135/43  617/129
3    9/2     83/26    44/5       .        .        .    136/33  753/162
4   38/6    130/18      .        .        .        .    168/24  921/186
5   12/1    116/4     17/3       .        .        .    145/8  1066/194
6    7/2     15/2     72/9       .        .        .     94/13 1160/207
7   16/3     56/1     57/1       .        .        .    129/5  1289/212
8   20/3      4/1     39/1     .....    .....    .....   63/5  1352/217
9    1/0      3/1     17/1      1/0       .        .     22/2  1374/219
10     .       .     SLEEP       .        .        .       .   1374/219
11     .       .        .      53/2      7/1       .     60/3  1434/222
12     .       .        .     120/3     23/3       .    143/6  1577/228
13     .       .        .      69/0     80/6       .    149/6  1726/234
14     .       .        .        .     123/3      68/21 191/24 1917/258
15     .       .        .        .        .      352/18 352/18 2269/276
16   .....   .....    .....    .....    .....    326/4  326/4  2595/280
17     .       .        .        .       1/1     262/7  263/8  2858/288
18     .       .        .        .        .      271/1  271/1  3129/289
19     .       .        .        .        .      224/2  224/2  3353/291
20     .       .        .        .     256/4      26/0  282/4  3635/295
21     .       .        .        .     220/0       4/0  224/0  3859/295
22     .       .        .      27/0    172/1       .    199/1  4058/296
23     .       .        .     285/4      4/0       .    289/4  4347/300
0   .....    .....    .....   304/1     .....    .....  304/1  4651/301
1     .        .        .     192/0       .        .    192/0  4843/301
2   18/3       .      28/0     17/0       .        .     63/3  4906/304
3    8/1     10/0     47/0       .        .        .     65/1  4971/305
4   12/1       .      54/1       .        .        .     66/2  5037/307
5     .        .      SLEEP      .        .        .       .   5037/307
6     .        .      SLEEP      .        .        .       .   5037/307
7     .        .      SLEEP      .        .        .       .   5037/307
8   .....    .....    SLEEP    .....    .....    .....   ..... 5037/307
9    1/0     17/1      3/0       .        .        .     21/1  5058/308
10     .     15/1     45/2       .        .        .     60/3  5118/311
11     .       .      68/1      1/0       .        .     69/1  5187/312
12     .       .       3/1     93/0      3/0       .     99/1  5286/313
13     .       .        .      37/0     53/1       .     90/1  5376/314
14     .       .        .      13/0     91/1      1/0   105/1  5481/315
15     .       .        .        .      69/0     72/2   141/2  5622/317
16   .....   .....    .....    .....    .....   187/1   187/1  5809/318
17     .       .        .        .      37/0    119/1   156/1  5965/319
18     .       .        .        .     228/1     18/1   246/2  6211/321
19     .       .        .        .     107/0    123/1   230/1  6441/322
20     .       .        .        .     170/0     18/0   188/0  6629/322
21     .       .        .        .      68/1    163/0   231/1  6860/323
22     .       .        .        .      13/0    216/0   229/0  7089/323
23     .       .        .      80/0    126/0       .    206/0  7295/323
DAY1 126/31  407/53  359/50   861/58  1061/55  1533/53   ..... 4347/300
DAY2  39/5    42/2   248/5    737/1    965/4    917/6      .   2948/23 
TOT  165/36  449/55  607/55  1598/59  2026/59  2450/59     .   7295/323


This was my first opportunity to operate the ARRL DX PHONE contest from 
Aruba or from any other location outside the U.S. for that matter (my 
preference has always been to operate the CW DX events but building a 
new home required me to be in New Jersey during the ARRL DX code 
weekend).  

Started the contest on 15 instead of 20 for a change.  The band was wide 
open and the initial chaos produced a quick 175 q's in 34 minutes before 
moving to 20.  A first hour total of 300 contacts was my best start in 
any contest in over 30 years.  Stayed on 20 for another hour (182) then 
began moving between 160/80/40 the remainder of the night.  Never felt 
comfortable anywhere and it was extremely difficult to find a clear 
frequency.  160 and 80 were very very noisy, the static seemed to be a 
near continuous roar and I'm sure the arcing power lines nearby didn't 
help.  The beverages made it marginally possible to hear stronger 
signals.  I apologize to those of you I just could not pull through, 
especially on 160.  As it turned out the noise would be even worse the 
second night.  About 5:15 a.m. local time broke for a 2 hour nap - I 
needed relief from the noise.  

Caught the tail end of the 40M opening upon awaking just after sunrise 
Saturday morning.  For the next several hours struggled to get runs 
going on 20 and 15, since it seemed everyone was beaming Europe.  Kept 
checking 10 and finally went there at 1445 Z.  The next two hours 
produced the best hours of the contest with huge pileups and back to 
back 351 and 327 hours.  WOW, now that got my adrenaline pumping, and 
represents my personal all time best hourly rates in any contest.  The 
5.4 hours on ten produced 1533 contests during day one, an average rate 
of 282 contacts per hour.  

Eventually transitioned to 15 for a few good 200 hours and then 
surprising back to back 285/304/192 hours on 20 meters during the 
23/00/01 period. It just doesn't get much better!

Then the bottom fell out again.  Both 160 and 80 were impossibly noisy 
and 40M a total zoo.  After three 65 hours in a row decided to call it a 
night around 1 a.m. local time and take a longer (4 or 5 hour) nap to be 
refreshed for the final push on Sunday.

Awoke about 0940 (the alarm clock wasn't set - I got lucky) and 
immediately hit the low bands until sunrise.  Again rates were generally 
lousy (if you consider around a 100/hour from the Carrib.lousy) until 
about 1530 when 10 opened up again, this time to the west coast (I don't 
believe the eastern Carrib. had this early opening at all).  Then made 
some trips back to 15 which yielded even better rates.  My son's 
godfather Ed, K2SQ called in on 15 and we QSYed to 10 about 2115Z.  This 
was a lucky move since the band had come alive with east coast stations 
and the rate went back up around 230.  Finished out the contest on 15/20 
with a 200 hour.

Looking back now there were 15 hours over 200/hour of which 4 were 
300+/hour.  Ten meters turned out to be simply outstanding and 15/20 
weren't far behind.  The overall average rate for the event was 179 
QSOs/hour in 40.7 hours of operating time (198/hour Day1 and 157/hour 
Day2).  

Was it just my perception or were there fewer stations on 75 afterward.  
Exchanged scores with PJ9G, FS5PL, HU1X, and 6D2X.  Everyone had had 
problems with noise on the low bands but it became apparent that 10 
meters had been a whole lot better from my part of the world.  

I want to especially thank NO2R, N2ZVY, N2NT, K2TW, N2MM, K3WW, K4UEE, 
P43P, P49V, K2KW, N6BT and my understanding YL Elaine, KB2ERI, for 
helping in their own unique ways to make this trip a great success.

Looking forward to operating  CQWW CW from P40W next fall.

73, 

John Crovelli, W2GD/P40W


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