IARU HF World Championship - 2022
Call: KU2M
Operator(s): KU2M
Station: KU2M
Class: SOABMixed LP
QTH: Wayne, NJ
Operating Time (hrs): 18
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Zones HQ Mults
-------------------------------------
160: 0 1 1
80: 23 2 6 3
40: 257 28 15 29
20: 365 117 30 35
15: 261 53 25 28
10: 30 12 9 7
-------------------------------------
Total: 936 213 85 103 Total Score = 761,964
Club: Frankford Radio Club
Comments:
Each year, I seem to spend more time in the IARU test. As it turns out, I had
more free time this year due to the recent, sad loss of my beloved companion and
four-legged friend, Lucy, and consoled myself with a more serious effort.
The first half of the 24 hours was plagued by very poor conditions. Running low
power is always a challenge, but combined with bad propagation, it was
impossible to get any kind of run going on 15M. 10M was almost dead, with a few
of the usual suspects in EU audible, but little else. Even the usually reliable
North-South path was impaired. I spent the rest of the day on the mainstay of
20M, and later, 40M.
After cleaning out 40, I QSYed to 80, anticipating EU sunrise and new mults, but
Oh No - for some reason, my 80 antenna refused to cooperate, and was giving me a
very high SWR. My radio's antenna tuner couldn't handle the mismatch, and I was
getting virtually zero output. Suddenly, the Soup Nazi from "Seinfeld"
popped into my head, gleefully shouting: "NO SOUP FOR YOU!" - or 80M
contacts, either. Gee, and things were going so well... I thought of trying to
load my newly-erected 1/4 wave 160M ground plane, but my radio's antenna tuner
couldn't deal with that load either. Was that it for 80? Even with a high SWR
mismatch at the antenna, if I could just get a few watts into it...
Since it was too late to run outside and put up an 80M antenna, I had one last
trick: an ancient, beat up, MFJ manual antenna tuner given to me over 30 years
ago by a non-ham friend (it was left to him by his SK ham dad, and, not being a
ham, he had no use for it). Since I was doing low power, it could handle the
output, but would it work? Only one way to find out. Next question: where the
heck was it? Miraculously, it was not too far away, buried under some stuff (my
motto: never throw anything away)- I dug it out, and ten minutes later, it was
in line with the rig, and lo and behold, was able to tune out most of the
reactance from the 160M antenna! (Some people call it Mighty Fine Junk, but not
me - it WORKED.) Now, my radio could at least put out some RF, and I ignored my
table-top touch-lamp turning on all by itself when I transmitted. (Lookit that,
I thought, as I pounded out the CW, it's the ghost of Nick Tesla) Of course, my
jury-rigged setup was far from ideal, but although most of the DX couldn't hear
me, some (with great ears) did, and that made the difference. Thanks to the
spare tuner, I was able to make 25 QSOs and garner 9 (count 'em) more mults.
After exhausting my limited 80M possibilities and working the ONLY contest
station that was on 160 (W1AW/3 - yup, my QST subscription dollars at work), I
went back to 40, and when that ran dry, I checked 20M, and could hardly believe
what I was hearing. It was past midnight, and 20 was booming with wall to wall
signals! Propagation had done a complete 180 turn - with simply incredible
conditions - and while I don't like staying up late, it was difficult to turn
the radio off. But I ran out of steam, and shut down around 2 AM to get some
sleep. After a few hours' rest, I forced myself out of bed to do the last hour
of the contest. That was a good decision, because unlike Saturday morning, 15M
was wide open and I was able to get a good run, with calls from Asian Russia for
some rare zones, and a few HQ holdouts.
Another contest, and another fun adventure, except for that pesky SteppIR 80M
dipole system breaking down. Well, as Gilda (Radner) used to say, "It's
always something."
But I think I'll put up an 80M wire antenna, just in case...
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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