CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW - 2023
Call: KU2M
Operator(s): KU2M
Station: KU2M
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: Wayne, NJ
Operating Time (hrs): 10.3
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 639 State/Prov = 55 Countries = 36 Total Score = 216,671
Club: Frankford Radio Club
Comments:
Normally 160M doesn't play too well here in the KU2M Triangle because of the
abject lack of real estate needed for Beverages and the like, but for some
reason, my pathetic "sloping vee" worked without any logical
justification and enabled me to not only work DX, but also to hear it. So,
instead of another "Worked All Ohio" 160M contest, this became
interesting - and fun, and I got sucked in. While most of the DX I worked was
EU, and nothing was really loud (is the DX ever loud on 160M?, I ask myself) I
did fall off the chair while I was running when I was called by 4L9M - without
the benefit of hallucinogenic drugs.
So, overall, conditions weren't bad! My RSV antenna (I won't tell you what the
"R" stands for - but it's not a positive - let's just say,
"ridiculous sloping vee") is the most pathetic, creepy wire antenna I
have ever owned (and I have had a bunch) - hanging from an old oak tree, only
about 60 feet up at the apex, with clumps of brown, dead vines and branches
stuck to the wires and hanging down like something out of The Munsters. And, the
business end slopes off toward EU over land that is rising (I'm sure the
neighbors love it, too). I kept looking at it and saying, "WHY does this
POS work???" Really awful looking, and fed with ancient RG8-X coax, this
thing worked ridiculously well, and kicked the butt of my torturously-erected
half wave vertical dipole (my other 160 antenna) which was never louder to EU
than the RSV and, because of its higher noise level, useless for hearing the
really weak DX, although it was several S units better than the RSV out west and
south, which is what I used it for. But for most DX - the RSV excelled, and kept
working. Was it all just because of "high angle" conditions? Who
knows. There are too many variables at play, so - all you 160M antenna geniuses:
go figure. I have put up numerous 160M antennas, and the only ones that have
ever worked well for DX have been junky or broken (like my first SteppIR DB36 -
that's right, a SteppIR DB36 - which, as Mike Mertel himself apologized about to
me personally, was an early design that was incorrect and shorted out the 80M
dipole ground side to the tower - which I guess made the thing a kind of weird
tower-shunted top-loaded quarter wave vertical, and allowed me, not being an
antenna genius, to use two antenna tuners to get the thing to resonate [sort of]
on 160M - and lo and behold, it was the best 160M DX antenna I have ever had. Of
course, after SteppIR "fixed" it, it never worked again on 160) or a
total POS like the RSV. But then again, that fits with what I long ago noticed
about hastily erected contest antennas, which was "the worse it looks, the
better it will work."
Then again, I would also like to credit the folks at Icom, who make the 7851,
which is far and away the best CW radio I've ever had. The '51 allowed me to be
200 Hz or less away from the QRO monsters and just about completely null out
their key clix out so I could hear the "ESP" weak ones. And, using its
coaxial digital output through a quality DAC, hearing quality was improved
another small but useful notch beyond what any other radio has thus far
provided.
All in all, great fun for a few hours each evening, and looking forward to next
year!
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