CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB
Call: KU8E
Operator(s): KU8E
Station: KU8E
Class: SOAB HP
Class Overlay: Classic
QTH: GA
Operating Time (hrs): 14
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 7 3 4
80: 10 4 9
40: 71 14 39
20: 131 23 57
15: 52 14 32
10: 37 6 15
------------------------------
Total: 308 64 156 Total Score = 182,600
Club: South East Contest Club
Comments:
Elecraft K3-100 and KPA500 , various wire antennas in trees.
Very frustrating weekend if you didn't have a tower/beam and legal limit
amplifier. My 600 watts and wires wasn't cutting the mustard this time. I think
this will be the norm for the next several years so I'm glad I didn't really
spend much time in the contest. I think even guys running low power with beams
were beating me out in pileups. Wish I could have better antennas but it's not
in the cards. Anyone in my situation who could make some suggestions on some
wire antennas with gain that I could put up in the trees would be greatly
appreciated.
I also had an issue with my best antenna - a 130 foot center fed zepp @ 65 ft -
that I mainly use on 80 and 40 meters. It's directional to EU on 40 meters.
(i.e. 2 half waves in phase) It usually works pretty good on those two bands. I
noticed on Friday night that the EU stations on 40 meters were louder on my 40
meter east/west dipole, which was strange. When I went to 80 meters none of the
EU stations could hear me and the CARR stations who I usually work easily
couldn't hear me very well either. After checking all the connections to the
tuner in the shack I gave up in frustration and went to bed thinking maybe it
was due to just bad conditions. On Saturday afternoon I lowered the antenna and
didn't find anything that looked like was broken. On Saturday night I had the
same problem so I just shut everything down and quit. On Sunday I checked the
antenna again and found a section of the 450 ohm feeder running along the ground
in the woods behind my house that had a break on one side of the ladder line
where I had done a splice in the past. It appears that was the problem because
when I got on 40 meters the last hour everything seemed normal again.
I noticed there were a disproportionate number of loud stations who couldn't
hear people calling them. You would think it they were 20dB or louder they would
hear me running 600 watts. That wasn't the case and many CQ'ed in my face even
when no one else was calling them. Also a good number of stations who don't
identify with their call for several minutes which has been a problem in the
past. I guess they figure everyone is using spotting so they don' t have to
identify. Personally I think spotting is ruining contesting because of the out
of control pileups they create.
Jeff
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
______________________________________________
3830 mailing list
3830@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/3830
|