ARRL-SECTION: CT
CALLSIGN: N8RA
CLUB: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
CREATED-BY: N1MM Logger V8.6.4
Band Mode QSOs Grids
50 CW 1 0
50 USB 136 60
144 CW 3 0
144 FSK441 1 1
144 USB 94 20
Total Both 235 81
Score: 26,973
Station prep
June's contest had suggested a few things for my to-do list before this
contest.
I had problems with my 2M preamp that is located at the base of the tower.
Thanks to all who replied to clue me in that the preamp might have a
spurious oscillation in the GHz range. One person reported having had that
very situation on an identical unit he had repaired for a friend and
suggested cutting the PCB trace at the drain of the FET and inserting a
ferrite bead on a bridging wire. So I pulled the unit back to the workbench
again and did this mod too. Since this preamp assembly is at the base of the
tower, it's a lot easier to work on than if it was up in the air near the
antenna. The source of the slow recovery from being bypassed during transmit
was found to be in one of the bypass relays. One pair of contacts was not
adjusted well enough to allow much wipe and sometimes it did not make up at
all when being tested. A thorough cleaning and mechanical adjustment took
care of that. The preamp worked FB throughout this contest, consistently
amplifying signals (and line noises and static crashes).
Also from June's contest, it became clear that I needed a better way to
handle SSB audio to my two radios. Two separate microphones is not the way
to go. I decided to feed the mic into the computer's sound card and use its
output, similar to the way recorded messages are handled. But my mic level
is rather low and when using the boost setting of the sound card there was
too much extra computer hash on the audio to suit me. So I built up the
little mic preamp circuit from the ARRL handbook to use between the mic and
the sound card which boosted the level quite well. The speaker output of the
sound card than feeds individual transformer isolators for each radio. While
I was at it, I reworked those isolation interfaces to use decent
transformers, terminations and individual level controls. This worked out
much better but still the audio quality of the FT897 is not good enough for
me, and taking care of that has been added to the to-do list.
The event
Great fun! (It always looks that way on Monday morning looking back.)
There were lots of static crashes heard at the start of the contest, and a
severe thunderstorm alert was in effect for my location, so I kept an eye on
that situation. As it turned out, none of them got close enough to force me
to shut down.
The contest seemed to start "OK" with 32 stations logged in the first hour,
but it steadily slowed down with only 12 more Q's added during the 5 PM
hour. It was getting to be a drag. I was disappointed that my 6M antenna did
not seem to be doing as well as I thought it should have. I took the next 2
hours off to do other things, have some dinner and check the bands
occasionally. Only 2 Q's were added during those 2 hours.
But then, at 8 PM I heard and worked a station in EM51 on 6M. E's were in,
but spotty. But they were in and out continuously until 11 PM local time.
Wow! A lot of grids were added during that time and the Q count was now up
to 146. While CQing and not getting answers, it was helpful to keep an eye
on the clock in the logging program: oh, it's only been 2 minutes since the
last answer? It had seemed like an eternity. But when that time would
stretch to 5 or 10 minutes, it was time to S&P. It was also important to
keep an eye on the bearing to the grids being worked so that the antenna
could be turned. My logging program shows that under each QSO. The E's
indeed hopped around a bit over those 3 hours (pun intended). An ear was
kept on 2M too, but nothing spectacular was happening there and I logged
only 4 new Q's on that band during this 3 hours.
One goal I had for this contest was to further investigate the value of WSJT
mode contacts as a tool for contesting. I started simultaneously monitoring
both 6 and 2 about midnight. I noticed some QSO's were being made off the
calling frequencies, perhaps from skeds. On the calling frequencies I could
hear some of the big guns calling CQ, but these were all stations I had
already worked. On 2M I heard 1 or 2 new ones calling CQ, and called them
without success. I run 200W output on the WSJT modes because of amplifier
duty cycle limitations. But I do have decent antennas and have made
contacts. So I tried a CQ of my own, and managed to work a station in
Minnesota, which was about a 1000 mile path and a new grid on 2M. This was
exciting, but as 2 AM approached and nothing further was heard or worked, I
went to bed. I set the alarm for 6 AM to see how these modes are at that
hour. On 2M I heard absolutely no stations on WSJT, and I think I tried some
CQ's without success. 6M had more activity on its calling frequency, but all
but one station had been already worked during last evenings E's. I was not
successful in raising that one new station. I am led to the same conclusion
as in June- this is great way to get some far out grids, but as a low power
single op I do not think the sleep lost is worth the gain. This is
especially true if the Midwest was worked on E's earlier in the contest. In
Sept or Jan, when grid counts are down, this may be worth reconsidering, or
if this had been a multi-op effort with a night owl manning the station.
Got back to SSB about 7:45 AM and started into the day's grind. A few quick
E's on 6M to the Midwest and Florida happened during the next hour, but
after that I just alternated between 6 and 2 squeaking out what I could. For
the rest of the day, I took frequent breaks to stretch my legs, do a few
other things without missing much (I hope), and chat with some locals in
between CQing a lot.
All in all, I was happy with performance of the station and its improvements
since the last event. The handling of mic audio, headphone switching, and
radio control worked out very well this time, and in the end I am happy with
my main 6M yagi. I found it very helpful to be able to CQ on one band while
listening to another, or to alternate CQ's. In addition to helping keep the
average contact rate up, this keeps your interest level up, and your anxiety
down, knowing that you are not missing a great band opening somewhere else.
Thanks for the Q's, and see hope to see everyone next time.
Chet, N8RA
_______________________________________________
VHFcontesting mailing list
VHFcontesting@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/vhfcontesting
|