ARRL 160-Meter Contest
Call: W2GD
Operator(s): W1GD, K2SG, K2TW, KU2C, N2HM, N2NC, N2OO, N4HY, W2CG, W2GD, W2KP
Station: W2GD
Class: M/S HP
QTH: SNJ
Operating Time (hrs): 41
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 1410 Sections = 78 Countries = 50 Total Score = 413,952
Club: Frankford Radio Club
Comments:
Contest day setup assistance also provided by: K2GN, K2RET, K2SZ, W2NO and
WM2Q.
Location: On a salt marsh next to Barnagat Bay, about 20 miles north of
Atlantic City, NJ, the former site of marine coast station WSC. A 100M tower
surrounded by a minimum of 200M of salt marsh is the primary site asset. This
is a temporary station set up each year for the 160M contest season.
Equipment:
Run Station: IC756ProII, IC746, Alpha 99
Mult Station: IC781, AL1200
Antennas:
2 element sloping dipole array fed against a delta loop reflector, fires NE, SW
or Omni @ 190 feet above the salt marsh, fed with 5/8 inch heliax
Inverted L (67 feet vertical) with 4 elevated radials above the marsh
2 ele 935' phased NE beveage array
2 ele staggered 580' West beverage array
580' unterminated beverages toward NW, East, South, and Southwest
K9AY rx loop 900 feet from TX antenna
The Story:
160M propagation is so unpredictable....I suppose that's why many of us love top
band so much. During the days preceeding the ARRL 160 contest, conditions were
picking up nicely, with great openings from the east coast to JA, the mid-east,
and of course to EU. But this was not to be the case the weekend of the ARRL
160M contest. It was like someone locked the door and threw away the key for
the next 48 hours, at least for propagation from NJ to Europe.
The ARRL 160 was the first of three planned contest efforts planned by our team
from our home away from home on the Jersey coastline this season (ARRL 160, Stew
Perry, and CQ160 CW) The SJDXA team plans to activate the station for CQ160 PH
as they did last year under the call N2CW.
The weather couldn't have been better, with clear and sunny skies, light winds,
daytime temperatures in the mid-40's and lower 20's (F) at night. WX condx made
the work that needed to be done outdoors quite pleasant, unlike last year when
we had heavy rain (that later turned to snow), and winds ripping at 25+ mph.
Two work parties over the prior 6 weeks had already taken care of most of the
heavy outside tasks, e.g. put up and rough tune the transmit antennas in the
marsh (exceptionally high water levels made this impossible during our first
work party in October), replace the elements of the NE beverage which were
showing their age (and numerous splices), relocate the NW beverage away from
power lines, run feedlines to and walk all the other beverages, and run
permanent coax cables into the building through buried PVC pipes as requested by
the property owner. On the Friday of the contest we only had to install the
coax phasing lines for the NE beverage, put up the K9AY loop, and fine tune our
TX antennas for best performance. Unlike other years the outdoor 160 antenna
work was completed more than 2 hours before the contest start. We even had time
to help the SJDXA guys put up a tribander.
Indoors, station setup is making sense of the maze you have with multilple
xcvers, amplifiers, coax cables, and antenna switching units. Marty, W2CG with
the help of Larry, K2GN and Tony, K2SG completed all the wiring and testing over
an hour before the bell...no small task! Everything was coming together so
well up to this point. And during casual operating prior to the contest we
heard and/or worked several EU stations well before our local sunset.
But when the contest started, it quickly became clear that band conditions were
not 'normal'. There was a deadly quiet sound when listening on the NE beverage,
we could not hear the Europeans calling on our most dependable antenna! By
switching to the TX antennas we managed to pull EU callsigns out of the
noise....and fortunately the local noise floor was relatively low, but signals
were very weak....what signals there were. This was all very
disheartening....
When we couldn't hear the Europeans on the NE beverage array, we had a few
moments of "panic" (actually many moments)....our first thought was to determine
if there was something physically or electrically wrong with the antenna which
seemed to be working normally before the contest. A scouting party was sent
out into the woods to walk the beverage, and we temporarily switched to a single
element configuration to see if that improved our listening abilities. But it
was all a wasted effort. The propagation gods had simply decided to put an
absorption cloud over us for the weekend. There was nothing that could be done.
Only the very strongest EU stations would get through - those we could hear on
the TX antennas. It just seemed so odd...and unfair.
On the other side of the coin, the run of stateside callers started and never
stopped all weekend. Over the first 6 hours we averaged a healthy 100+ an hour,
logging 604 QSOs ....the best start our 160M team has ever experienced in any
contest we've entered during the last 20 years. WOW!
We also found while running stations to the west that our NW beverage was
outperforming the West beverage. This was another unusual and new development
which required immediate investigation/action. After swapping out the coax the
antenna had signficantly more amplitude, but the unexpected and unusual pattern
persisted all weekend. We attribute this to the oddball propagation conditions.
But we'll investigate this issue further during the Stew Perry weekend.
Conditions to the west were fairly good both nights. It didn't take long to
pass the 70 multiplier mark and by the end of the first night only KP4, VE4,
VY1/VE8, and KL7 were not in the log. Finding KV4FZ Saturday evening was easy,
and fortunately someone called out VE4JB the second night. We never heard or
saw callouts for KL7J or VY1JA. Maybe next year.
We didn't work any JA stations Saturday morning, continuing a tradition that
goes back ten years....call us snakebit when it comes to working JAs. At least
we heard one! No VK/ZLs called in either. Again, maybe next year.
Some may wonder is it really worth operating during daylight hours? We decided
to give it a try this year to see what happened. Keeping our sending speed down
seemed to help encourage callers. The Saturday daylight operation yielded 65
hard earned contacts....made almost entirely by Ed, W2KP. On Sunday Pete, KU2C
had the duty and he put nearly 40 more in the log after sunrise. Thanks for
staying in the chair and CQing into the noise guys!
During our spare time Saturday afternoon, we added a second 580' staggered
element to the west beverage array. It seemed to work well Saturday night.
Saturday night was again almost exclusively a W/VE event. The occasional EU
station would come up over the noise of the TX antennas, and again the EU
beverage was virtually useless most of the time. Sunrise was a non-event for us,
again, no JA/VK/ZL.
Congrats to K9DX, AA1K, K5GO, W4MYA, K5NA and others for their great SOHP
efforts. John, you have set a new standard for everyone to aspire - 1810 QSOs.
Thats smoking OM!
Our 1410 QSOs and 78 sections were new alltime highs for our team operations.
We can only ponder how high the score might have been if conditions had been
near 'normal' to EU and elsewhere. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.
Conditions this year have made the M/S catagory a horse race. Congrats to
VE3EJ/K8PO for a great job, and to the NO2R, K9FO, KC1XX, K8XXX and N0NI teams
for their fine scores.
This report would be incomplete without a special note of thanks and
appreciation to the owners of WYRS-FM, who allow our team to use their station
facilities, and to the members of the SJDXA for continued support and
cooperation.
See everyone again during the Stew Perry.
73,
John, W2GD (for the entire 160M TEAM)
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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