Call: WO1N Country: United States
Mode: CW Category: Single Operator
Power: Low Power
QSO QSO PTS STATES COUNTRIES
Totals 420 1105 52 20 = 79,560
Club Affiliation: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Equipment: Yaesu FT757GXII, Timewave DSP59+, Inverted L at 55'
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WO1N 1996 CQ 160M CW or How I beat Murphy with 10 minutes to go...
I planned my most serious contest effort from my own shack to date
for this one. I really enjoy 160M and the 36hr length coupled with day hours
off works for me/the family. One key element to success was putting it
in BOLD letters in the family calendar long in advance so there were no
surprises. I even took the day off from work to be ready for its 2200Z
start time. So far so good.
I run a pretty modest station as you can see from my equipment list, but its
slowly improving. After a large investment (DSP59+) but half hearted effort
at the ARRL 160M CW I listed two things that needed updating. Lower my
sidetone volume (easily done) and buying an external keyer.
So, I picked up a Jade products Curtis keyer kit and put it together a week
prior to the test. I had it running, set up CT and basically tested the
combo all week long. No problems.
About 2100Z I go to the shack, fire up the rig and start playing around. I
throw the Bird on the output. "Hmmm, its only showing 90W, could of sworn
I've seen 100w before" I muttered to myself. "I wonder if I'm getting any
significant IR drop on my DC power when I key up?" So, I get the DVM at T
-30min and counting. Gee, a good place to measure this would be the coaxial
power connector on my cool Jade products keyer with large Radio Shack widget
content. Easy, done. No IR drop. OK, I live with the indicated 90W.
I plug the keyer power back in and what! NO CW! I start yanking cables,
flicking switches, reseting the rigs cpu. No dice. Put the Bencher
directly into the back of the rig, turn on its internal keyer and guess
what? It does dahs, but it won't do dits! It is now T-15min to start and I'm
starting to hyperventilate while reviewing my options: 1) Blow off the
contest 2) Key it all by hand with a straight key 3) Maybe, just maybe, swap
my keying path over to the dah side. I fire up the soldering iron swap one
little wire over and guess what it works! T-10min. Heck, time to spare.
Murphy didn't leave totally. About 0800Z (Sunday AM) the high intensity
lamp over my operating position blew up with a nice bright blue flash. That
was good for 3 or 4 extra q's that hour. But, everything else was smooth
as glass. We even shrugged off 40-50mph winds all day Saturday with no ill
effects despite power failures all around town.
I highly recommend the DSP59+, it got a major work out during this test.
Helped me find holes to run in that, without, would have been impossible.
Pulled RK2FWA out of total chaos Saturday evening for a new mult. In all 4
or 5 new countries for me for what I believe were some of the best conditions
this winter. Missed a bunch of DX that 500-600W would have gotten me, but
it is impressive what can be done with 100W (well, OK, 90W) and modest
antenna's on Topband. I did leave a couple of mults on the table including
HB9, FG5, OK1, 9A that better antennas/more strap would have easily worked.
Missed 4 states (ND, ID, NV and NE). Even had some DX work me while I was
running. I was working G-land as late as 0800Z Sunday morning.
Again a pat on the back go to us all for keeping the DX window clean. It didn't
feel like anyone encrouched on my run frequency all weekend, but the
bandwidth settings on the DSP box got pretty tight at times. Got asked to
move once, so I did. I found South Dakota way up the band in the wee
hours of Sunday morning. Someday I'm going to move to the Dakota's so I
can be rare DX too. Best of all, I had total support from the family. My
wife even brought me down dinner Friday evening. It just doesn't
get any better.
CU in the ARRL DX,
Ken - WO1N
Here or Compuserve (75260.3652 preferred)
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