I can share W4ATL's frustration. Having a wire antenna farm works OK for
domestic contests but a DX contest is a different story. I was planning on
doing SOLP until K4BAI offered to loan his AL811.
I was afraid it might cause TVI problems with the neighbors and might expose my
stealth wire antenna farm back in the easement behind the duplex we are
renting. John had also had offered his Ten Tec Titan as a loaner (after a
change in plans at NQ4I) as well but i decided I would be conservative and use
the AL811, which puts out about 600 watts.
My antenna farm consists of the following :
Zepp @ 50 ft - broadside EU, cut for 40 meters. Used this antenna on 40-10
meters,
20 meter dipole @ 50 ft broadside SE/NW - this is a killer antenna..
40 meter vertical with 4 elevated radials
80 meter inverted L - 4 elevated radials
For 160 I shorted the feedline on the zepp and fed as a 'T'
I was very pleased with my results. If I had time to put in a full 48 hours I'm
sure I would of broken
1000 QSO's . Like Sherm , I had very bad luck getting a run going , so I
concentrated on working as
many QSO's/Mults doing S&P. I was amazed at the luck I was having breaking some
of the pileups.
The highlight for me had to be working 9M2CNC on 20 CW on one call with about
10 mins to go on Sunday. As I tuned down the band 9V1PC was booming in on 14002
with a huge pileup and listening split. I ended up working him at 2359Z as the
last contact in his log !!!
It would of been alittle more fun to have operated from a competitve station
but I still had fun...
73, Jeff KU8E
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