CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB
Call: NJ4M
Operator(s): K4LOG, K4SXY, WD4AHZ
Station: K4LOG
Class: M/S LP
QTH: FL
Operating Time (hrs): 35
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160:
80: 18 8 14
40: 73 16 50
20: 156 24 68
15: 214 23 67
10: 239 20 70
------------------------------
Total: 700 91 269 Total Score = 675,720
Club: Florida Contest Group
Comments:
Richard, K4LOG, and I decided almost at the last minute, to team up
and try a M/S effort from his QTH. This required some work moving
antennas around, so on Tuesday afternoon, Dan, K1TO, generously
assisted us by showing up with his Gin pole and climbing to help
take down an old Cushcraft A4 from one 40' tower and replace it
with a C3. Thursday Richard and I took down a 2 element 10 Meter
quad on a second 40' tower, and put the A4 in it's place.
While checking the SWR on the A4, we found there was a problem.
We concluded it was somewhere up in the coil arrangement, so
Richard climbed up, and swapped the coil for a balun. Success!
The SWR was down to where it should be. Next, while checking
the rotation of the beam, we discovered something was binding,
and we couldn't get 360 degree rotation. Again, Richard goes
up the tower to solve that problem ... and we finally have the
second beam up and running!
While admiring our handy work on the two towers, I came up with
the crazy idea of stringing up a wire "V beam" between the two
towers. While not optimum (around 35' high and aimed at 60
degrees), maybe it'll give us a little advantage over just
an inverted V alone. So, to work we went, cutting wires
and stringing the "boom" between the two towers. We ran
out of daylight to do much else, so final preparations for
CQWW would have to wait for Friday.
Friday afternoon, we finished stringing up the V beam and 75M
inverted V. The antenna work was done, so know we could
concentrate on putting the shack together. Richard had pretty
much gutted his operating position for the effort, so we
started planning on where we'd put things and how we'd hook
everything up. Station One ended up being Richard's old Ten
Tec into the C3. This would primarily be the "run" station
for 10, 15, and 20. Since the M/S rules allow for an
additional "mult" station, we used my MP and A4 for Station
Two, the "mult" station. Station Two would also be used on
40 and 75. We set up two networked computers for logging,
and had a third computer watching the DX spots. We didn't
have enough COM ports to go around, so the spots weren't
being fed into the logging computers. When things got slow,
we'd have to jot down some juicy mults on paper, and then go
try and work 'em!
Upon testing our "network", we found out our logging
computers wouldn't talk to each other. We tested all kinds
of combinations, but it still wouldn't work. I then decided
to check each computer separately, and see if it would control
my MP. One computer did ... the other didn't. We assumed there
was a COM port problem. Luckily, Richard had another old
computer around, so he swapped out the hard drives ... we
hooked it up to the MP, the CAT light started blinking and
we now had a working COM port. We reconfigured everything, and
now we had two computers talking to each other! With several
hours to be before the start of the Contest, our "station"
looked good and was ready to go.
We fired up the rigs, and ran some tests. We knew with
certain band combinations, we'd have some problems with
station interference, but we'd live with it. Richard fooled
around trying to get a voice keyer to work properly, but
wasn't having any success, so we decided we'd have to scrap
plans for the voice keyer. About 30 minutes before the
start, my headset starting giving me trouble and wouldn't
key my rig (after just telling the guys at N4TO that things
were going well!). So we tore open my little "homebrew"
adapter, and started resoldering connections. This fixed
the problem, so now we were in business! 0000Z rolled
around, and we were off and running (OK, maybe limping
is the better term).
Sometime Friday night/Saturday morning, the A4 again developed
a high SWR problem ... and it had to be eliminated for the
duration of the contest. That left Station Two using the
40 M V beam/75M inverted V combo through a tuner, as our
multiplier station on 10-20! Not at all a good thing, but
we worked what we could. While Richard was taking a nap, I
grabbed the beam, and became the "run" station ... picking
off everything I heard and we didn't yet work.
Saturday night/Sunday morning proved to be very slow for us.
40 had nothing on it that we hadn't already worked, and
the high bands were pretty useless. I decided to lay down
and try to get my first rest, while Richard worked what he
could. While coming out of my "fog", I heard what sounded
like success with the voice keyer. Richard had gone back
to work on the keyer to see if he could get it working,
which he did. We were now feeling good! Up to this point,
we'd had minimal success calling CQ. When we did try to run,
seemed the only ones who would answer us were US stations
anyway. Now with the keyer working, we would be able to
hit "F1" all day Sunday! Well, after getting it hooked
back up, and recording messages, the audio didn't sound
too good (background "hum") so once again dejected, we had
to scrap the voice keyer, and keep pressing on.
Worked a couple nice mults on 40 around sunrise on Sunday,
while Richard was waiting for the higher bands to open up.
We saw a ton of spots from other US and VE stations ... and
we didn't hear a thing! This wasn't good for our moral,
since we had already discussed (several times) throwing
in the towel! Finally the bands started opening, but not
as well as Saturday. Richard jumped between the bands
trying to work what he could, as I combed the other bands for
mults ... writing down stuff coming over the cluster.
With just the wires, some were nearly impossible to work.
We'd hoped they would still be around when Richard would
get to that band to work it with the beam. This was
pretty much our strategy for Sunday, since we still had
no success running stations.
The bands seemed to be up and down - just like our enthusiasm.
We took more and more breaks, and they seemed to be getting
longer and longer! Richard's wife, Michelle, K4SXY, had said
she wanted to do some operating Sunday, so we decided to
keep operating until then. She finally got into the chair,
and after a brief logging tutorial, she started to S&P and
added QSO's to the log, while I sat nearby to "assist" if
needed. We then took another break, and we decided we'd had
enough, but wanted to make 700 QSO's. I got on and attempted
to get a run going to get us our final QSO's ... but again,
wasn't having much success, with mostly US stations calling
in. Tuned around for the last 3 or 4 QSO's ... and once we
hit 700 ... we called it quits for good.
While we were a little disappointed with our efforts, it
was a useful learning experience for us to attempt a M/S
operation ... and to get it all up and running in less
than a week. IF we ever want to attempt it again, at
least we'll know what improvements we need to make and
what we need to do differently to improve. In the end,
we did have fun and probably operated more together, than
we would have separately.
A couple final thoughts. Why did so many stations
have a problem with our call ... turning us into NJ2M
... and how do you work US stations for easy mults on
40 ... when everyone is working split?
73,
Ron WD4AHZ
Richard, K4LOG
Michelle, K4SXY
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