ARRL 160-Meter Contest
Call: N7GP
Operator(s): N5IA
Station: W7MCO
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: AZ, DM52
Operating Time (hrs): 30
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 1032 Sections = 75 Countries = 17 Total Score = 203,136
Club: Cactus Radio Club
Comments:
This one is fairly LOOONG.
Another good one has come and gone. Thanks for ALL the contacts. This one was
a bit different. I couldn't get a team together (This station has multi-oped
this contest the past 4 years) so I did a single op.
Murphy not only visited, but he came to stay starting last Wednesday as I began
the prep for the station. Basically the W7MCO station does not get used from
the end of the CQ 160 SSB in February until the ARRL 160, so there is plenty to
get ready after 9 months of neglect.
The Javelinas (Pecary, or a type of wild hog; see
http://helios.bto.ed.ac.uk/bto/desbiome/javelina.htm) like to chew the Beverage
wires at the sloping terminations together with the RG-59 jumpers from the
transformer boxes to the hardline so there was a bunch of them to repair.
There was more damage than I anticipated.
The 17 position remote antenna switches had a number of relays that had to be
replaced. Then Murphy made one controller totally fail and I couldn't get the
spare to work. I wound up with a Bev selector on the run MP only. The hunt MP
was connected to the 2 WL EU Bev only.
The venerable 91b Alpha of XZ1N and XZ0A fame had not been turned on since
February. When the MP showed infinite VSWR into the amp I suspected a relay.
Sure enough, the little soldered-in DIP relay on the input board was BO. No
time to order one from Alpha so the backup Model 89 was installed on the
operating desk. Now I had power!!!!! The twin MP's and the Alpha then worked
flawlessly through the entire contest.
The contest starting time here is two hours before sunset so those two hours
are relatively slow. Just picking up Q's from the few locals, out to 500 miles
or so, who also start at the bell. Then came the killer.
At 2330Z a tremendous electric line noise appeared. It was S-8 while listening
in the AM mode on the VK3 Beverage. The noise affected ALL RX antennas. It did
NOT go away; staying the whole night and in effect covering at least 2 levels of
signals.
The ZERO hour Z was the best with 85 Q's and a whole bunch of Section mults.
Then it was 12 hours of asking for repeats and pushing F7 for ..--.. The
highlight of the 1st night of operation was having a LOUD JT1CO call in through
the noise level.
The first night ended with 609 - 81 - 101,574
and WAS in 15 hrs, 41 mins.
The last five in order were:
46 -- RI -- N1QME at 0527
47 -- LA -- K5MQ at 0552
48 -- WY -- W7SE at 0915
49 -- AK -- KL7RA at 1033, and
50 -- ND -- N0UD at 1341.
THANKS!!!!! to all these FB operators for calling my station. I have
accomplished the 160 Meter WAS in shorter time as a multi-op but this is a
record for me as a single op.
N7GP multi-op 160 Meter WAS times.
2005 -- AK at 0547 for WAS in 7 hours and 47 minutes. A record?????????
2004 -- RI at 1129 for WAS in 13 hours and 29 minutes. No NT for a sweep.
2003 -- Missed AK as no stations were active. NT only other Sec not worked.
2002 -- AK at 1054 for WAS in 12 hours and 54 minutes.
I then traveled to my home and slept for a bit over five hours. I woke up with
only one thing on my mind: Find the noise source and get rid of it!!! I
started tracing the noise with the AM radio in the Suburban. It was so loud
that it was difficult for the ears to discern any level differences. I finally
narrowed it down to something in the vicinity of a dairy about 2 miles from the
RX antenna site (the VK3 Beverage was right on, direction wise!)
I could not locate the culprit in an hour of visibly looking for the source and
listening for the arc (I was sure I could hear a source which was creating a
noise of the magnitude I was hearing on the vehicle AM radio). No luck!!!
Not finding it, I knew I had to somehow mitigate the affect of the noise on the
RX antenna system. I had two, single wire Bevs, 1 WL to JA and 2 WL to EU
located about 2,000 feet beyond (farther from the noise source) the regular
Beverage field. I went to the site, repaired some Javelina damage to them, and
connected both antennas through a signal combiner to a single feedline going to
the collection/switching location.
At the feedline connection and switching location I substituted this combo feed
for a little used 200 degree Bev. I also connected a signal split of the combo
to the feedline going to the 2nd radio in the shack.
The signal levels from the Bev combo are somewhat lower than the regular Bevs
at they are close to the ground (2 Ft. AGL) and nearly double the feedline
(4,500' total). BUT, they saved the 2nd night. I could still hear the noise
source but the SNR was about 6 dB better than the best of the regular Bevs.
Listening almost exclusively on the combo, I managed 423 additional Q's, 11
more mults including a sprinkling of EU, a mini JA run just before sunup, had
UA0DC call in with a great signal, and a final score of a bit over 200K.
Overall conditions were better than last year (2005) but not as good as 2004.
So much for lower sunspot numbers.
The unworked Sections is the most for me in a number of years. I never heard
PR, NT, VE4, and NNY, and did not spend enough time trying the NL station.
>From other reports I have read, there were a couple of Carib area stations I
should have found. I also did not spend enough time trying the YV5. The slow
CW did not allow me enough time to leave the run frequency unattended, hi,
hi!!! On the bright side, DUPES were down significantly. ??????
I packed it in at 1400 as the sun came up and went home to sleep a couple of
hours before heading out for Sunday church obligations.
Now for a bit of summary for those who like numbers. This is how it finalized
out here in the desert Southwest of the US of A.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>From these numbers, you can see that working W & VE stations is the mainstay of
the point totals.
2 point QSOs: 984
5 point QSOs: 48
-----------------------------
N America: 988 988
S America: 2 2
Europe: 5 5
Asia: 33 33
Oceania: 4 4
-----------------------------------
And the list below shows where they came from according to the multiplier.
Once again the great ops in the Golden State of California provided the
greatest percentage of the total contacts. Thanks guys for the 123 Q's which
is 12% of my total.
The Lone Star State of Texas contributed 65 Q's (6.3% of the total) while the
Ohio Buckeyes and the great ops in the Land of 10,000 Lakes (Minnesota) each
checked into my log with 45 Q's. Those 4 states combined made up more than 1/4
(26.9%) of the N7GP total.
Other hotbeds of Q contribution were PA-32, VA-29 and TN-29.
Below is the list where you can find YOUR contribution to the total if you were
not among the heavy hitters listed above. The DX list is below the Section
totals.
QSOS PER MULTIPLIER BREAKDOWN
Station: N7GP
Contest: ARRL 160 Meter Contest
Mult QSOs
CT 14
EMA 14
ME 4
NH 13
RI 3
VT 10
WMA 6
ENY 17
NLI 2
NNJ 13
SNJ 9
WNY 12
DE 2
EPA 26
MDC 19
WPA 6
AL 18
GA 21
KY 5
NC 16
NFL 10
SC 7
SFL 6
TN 29
VA 29
WCF 3
AR 7
LA 7
MS 8
NM 11
NTX 21
OK 13
STX 39
WTX 5
EB 11
LAX 12
ORG 22
SB 7
SCV 24
SDG 8
SF 8
SJV 10
SV 21
AZ 29
EWA 4
ID 6
MT 7
NV 9
OR 19
UT 10
WWA 38
WY 3
MI 29
OH 45
WV 10
IL 33
IN 23
WI 23
CO 35
IA 11
KS 9
MN 45
MO 12
NE 4
ND 2
SD 8
MAR 3
QC 3
ON 17
SK 3
AB 7
BC 10
PAC 4
AK 1
VI 1
------------------
C6 1
CT 1
CU 1
G 1
GI 1
HI 1
I 1
JA 31
JT 1
OK 1
P4 1
PJ2 1
PY 1
UA9 1
V7 1
XE 2
ZF 1
-------------------
So what does all this mean? Just that the challenge of 160 Meters is something
I enjoy tremendously and I am glad there are so many other FB operators who also
have the disease.
73 for now, and I'll be listening to work ALL of you in the Stew Perry Distance
Challenge, 11th Edition, in 4 weeks.
Milt, N5IA, op at N7GP for this one.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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