I can help with RX noise issues.
73, Jim K9YC
On Fri,12/5/2014 2:01 PM, DALE LONG wrote:
Our plans for a 160m operation and CQWWCW entry were delayed due to supply
issues and construction woes. THINGS ARE NOT EASY IN HAITI !!! We are very
fortunate that we had any place to operate. We had only very low dipoles on
the higher bands at the hotel/guesthouse.
Thanks to the great kindness of Jean-Robert HH2JR (who is also famous for his
efforts in the Haitian earthquake) we were offered the opportunity to use his
nice station for the contest, and operate with the club callsign of 4V1FR. The
last two days we worked on erecting the 160m antenna.
We need to be thankful for three things, the kindness of HH2JR, the efforts to
put up the antenna (including tower climbing and roof-climbing by an un-named
old guy) and the excellent filtering ability of the Elecraft K3. We did not
have time or space for a listening antenna, although with more time I would
have tried.
In the end we worked 180 stations on topband and had 3100 QSOs in the contest,
which is not bad for a contest operation with only two ops. We aso had three
lengthy power outages during which we got good exercise trying to start the
generator. You probably already know that we were there on the top of every
hour. We made a big effort on 160m because of the need.
The antenna was an inverted Vee with one side folded back to the tower about 15
feet from the ground. The wire almost reached back to the tower. The other
side went over a couple roofs and tied off in a neighboring property. It was
an accomplishment to get this antenna erected and our host HH2JR was delighted
to have a 160m antenna.
The bad news is that we worked no EU stations, not a single one. We had 20
over 9 noise constantly...We did not have static crashes, just constant noise.
One leg of the antenna was very close to a WIFI antenna. Not sure if that was
the only culprit.
I would like to know how we were being heard in EU...I have no reports. Our
antenna described above and we used an Acom 1011 amplifier with about 750w
output. Our best contact was with CN2AA. All other contacts were in the
Caribbean area and North America.
My goal in the future is to organize a dxpedition for topband operation only.
We are looking for interested operators who love 160m. We know that contest
weekends are not the best for DXing. We need a dedicated team of topband guys,
not one guy without an RX antenna. But again, we need to thank HH2JR. Without
his kind offer there would have been zero contacts on 160m last weekend.
Thanks for all who called and wish that more of you could have been in the log.
Please let me know if you would be interested in doing a 160m dxpedtion from
Haiti. And please let me know how was our signal in EU compared to other
stations.
Thanks & 73
Dale - N3BNA
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