ARRL 160-Meter Contest - 2021
Call: AJ1AJ
Operator(s): AJ1AJ
Station: AJ1AJ
Class: SO Unlimited LP
QTH: NH
Operating Time (hrs): 6:29
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 264 Sections = 42 Countries = 4 Total Score = 22,428
Club:
Comments:
That was fun.
I don't have much experience on 160m. Last year I put up a 160m inv-l in the
swamp behind my house, but it came down after a few months, and I can only
access the swamp during 3 months of the year when it's frozen, so I've been
without 160 for some time. On Wednesday I spontaneously decided to do this
contest, but the constraints that I was under were that I didn't have time to
get out to the hardware store and I couldn't get outside after work because it
gets dark at 4:15PM. On Thursday and Friday after work I taped some wires to a
bucket and soldered some tap points, and then on Saturday I was able to get out
to my 80m wire vert and load it up. My apologies for my weak signal, but it was
this or nothing. On top of that, the QRO tuner that I ordered 6 months ago
hasn't arrived yet, so I was limited to 100w with the internal ATU of my IC-7300
and couldn't compensate for the inefficient antenna with some power.
Saturday evening I was able to run at a decent rate for around an hour. I took
a break and when I returned lightning had started up (or propagation had opened
up to where the lightning was, I don't know, hence my comment about not knowing
160m very well). In those 30 minutes condx changed to the point that I couldn't
even S&P effectively and was wasting people's time. I ended up waking up a
little after 4am and the band was quiet again and I could do some Qs easily.
Clearly I need to do something between now and Stew Perry to bring my 160m
signal up. I'll try to get a 160m inv-l up but that's far from certain. If I
do need to load my 80m vert with my loading bucket I'll at least be up 7db from
going from 100w to 500w. I probably won't be able to bring the feedpoint
enclosure inside to build a matching network but it strikes me that I should at
least be able to bring the real resistance up by doing a crude beta match in the
field and reduce the feedline losses from the mismatched antenna, although at
this frequency I don't know how much it matters. Anyways I enjoy this kind of
experimentation and the fact that it enabled me to operate - even in a limited
capacity - and get Qs and get RBN spots was very rewarding.
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