My 160m antenna in the storm.
Our QTH halfway up the hill in the middle.
Extension coil.
HK0GU in action.
Again, the ARRL 160 contest is a blast. More contacts and more sections and a new country RW0 with 100 watts from my home-brew transceiver, the HBR2000. My antenna is a very odd shaped full wavelength loop, 85 ft straight up, 110 ft. horizontal then slopping down to the rear fence at 6 feet and around to the feed point hung between a 100 foot douglas fir and 90 foot cedar tree. For receiver I used my 40 meter dipole and a 35 ft random noise antenna with my noise canceler to dig out the weak ones.
Sure good to hear the ole guys hammering away and lots of new guys as well.
C U nxt yr. 76 VE7CA
VE7CA@rac.ca
www.qsl.net/ve7ca
This was my first time on 160m. Did this 100% S&P, unassisted with only 100 Watts. Thanks to WE9V for the prodding just days B4 to try it out and for other fellow SMC'er's tips, as well! Now I have 39 states towards WAS-160m. And just days after contest, 31 states are already confirmed via LoTW!! This contest was awesome!!! It was like an ALL-U-CAN-EAT smorgasbord early in the test. Work a Q... barely move the dial... work another... Many time I would call into a pile and get it on the first try. Even the XYL was impressed on how easy it was to get on this band with what we had... long wire, short property, short trees...
Funniest thing about one of the QSO's... I heard AA9D working a station (S&P), and when I took my crack at the same station, the op was trying to tell me B4 B4... figures... but got it after tossing my AA9D"Y" at 'em a few more times...
To get on this contest, I was one of those that crazy enough to whip something together the night before, literally in the cold night and right before a major snowstorm. Armed with a little flashlight and determination, I ventured out into the dark & cold just hours before the snowstorm was to start. Managed to get a 140 foot wire ~20ft vertically up into a tree at the edge of the marshland behind my house, several feet below our property grade... One cool thing about this antenna is that the vertical section of this ant will get taller and taller every year. Maybe on the order of 4-6 feet each year. The trees at the marsh boundary are fast growers and can get to >50 feet.
The rest of antenna shoots over the 2nd story of the house and ends up about 20ft up in a tree in the front yard by the curb. Had a heck of a time getting the line over the house. Tossed the line to the top of the garage, which is only one story. Climbed up there and without falling, used a broom to push the wire over the apex of the second story. Had the XYL out in the front yard holding the line, while I fiddled with the things on the roof (fiddler on the roof?.. yeah I just realized I typed that...).
For the ground-point, I drove a 3ft rod into the ground very close to where the vertical wire section starts. Soil was pretty soft still and moist. Well, just as I finished things, the snow started around 11:30PM. The VSWR wasn't very good during post installation checks.
Friday Morning... The good thing about getting the 12" of snow is that it made it difficult to get out of the driveway for work and our street wasn't even plowed yet. So, I worked out of the house. Later in the afternoon (after snow removal exercizes), I set out on an arctic expedition to the marshland to work on the antenna. I didn't have any more wire to lay out radials, so I clamped one of the spades from a 75 ft extension cord to the ground braid of the coax. The cord was laying on the ground perpendicular to the way my antenna bends. Would add more radial, but it was awfully close to game time, and I was getting wet and cold!!! VSWR improved a lot and made the auto-tuner happy. Bagged about 165 Q's after several hours B4 hitting the hay for the night.
Late Saturday morning of the contest, I realized there was not going to be any Q's to collect. So, I checked out the antenna on other bands. Looks like the antenna "as is" works for 15, 12, 10, 6 meters. I made some Skywarn Recognition Day contacts (Phoenix, AZ; Grand Junction, CO; Elko, NV) and also a QSO with Oregon on 15m. The Oregon station gave me a 5x9+20 report! Made my morning. :-))
Sunday afternoon, after I got back home from a trip out of town, I took down the antenna and will put it away in a safe place 'til next year. Afterall, I still need 11 more states for WAS-160m. I plan to get more radials out there and the vertical section should be taller.
73, Wayne / AA9DY.com
My first QSO in the 2006 ARRL 160M contest was my first-ever QSO on 160. Just before the contest I put up a Bilal Isotron 160C antenna at about 35 ft. I tried to set it up for the lowest possible resonant frequency. By contest time, my antenna tuner could get it to match on the 6 or 7 kHz below 1830 and the 8 or 9 kHz above 1835. Consequently, I spent my 12+ hours of operating time hunting up & down, up & down those 15 kHz & hating the 5 kHz I had to skip over each time because they were designated for international DX, none of which I even heard.
Eventually, I wound up with results that really surprised me. Operating only QRP with a TenTec Omni-VI & using the Isotron for both TX & RX from my home in Minneapolis, MN I wound up working 34 states & 5 provinces & claiming 10,920 points (130 QSOs, 42 sections).
The antenna seemed to radiate equally in all directions but the set-up was understandably restricted in terms of distance it could reach. For example, I was able to work only one Californian and nobody in Florida despite the best efforts of skilled ops in both states.
In fact, a good number of hams all over the US & Canada had to listen very hard to copy my weak signal. It's entirely to their great credit they were willing to do so. Many thanks to each of them/you. I'm very much in their debt & wish they got some sort of bonus for each QRP station they worked--it IS harder at the other end of a QRP signal, even with the finest of antennas and most ideal of QTHs.
All in all it was terrific fun and gave me a glimpse of the pleasure to be found on 160. I'll be back! And next time, I'm taking a nap during the day so I can stay up longer before falling asleep with my head on the key!
Best wishes to everybody & here's hoping all of us are able to be back in 2007.
72 & 73,
Max, k0max
SDR 1000, 40M Inverted Vee used on 160M shorting coax in shack and loading as random wire with tuner.
After almost 40 years as a ham, I had a good time on 160M. I had only made 6 contacts on 160M before the 125 QSOs I made overnight in this contest.
I will do this again.
Fired up my old Yaesu FT-757GXII and added base-loading coil to my 75 meter inverted-L. Worked pretty good too! 125 good contacts in 36 sections. Great to hear so many signals pounding into South Carolina. 73, Bob WA2EMF
This was my first 160m contest ever. Unfortunately I had only limited time because my plane left on Saturday morning.
I worked the contest with my IC-706MK2G running 100W into an Inverted L (12m "fishing rod") and managed to work 274 stations. All in all I made more than 1400 QSOs on top band for the first time from Providencia Island, most of them with USA stations. Condx during the contest were fair. The contest started too early for me so I had to struggle to get the first QSOs into my log. After three hours it went better. And - my antenna stood upright the whole night. The days before I had to erect it almost every morning, because it fell into the wood due to strong winds during the nights. A hard piece of work to get the wire and guide rope out of the wood on the steep slope.
The QTH was a good DX spot with free "shot" from northwest over east to southwest. But exposed to the storms and rain too. One night my laptop computer "swam" away and I had to went back to the roots (I had to use the keyer and open a paper log for two days), then it worked again after drying in front of the fan.
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My 160m antenna in the storm. |
Our QTH halfway up the hill in the middle. |
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Extension coil. |
HK0GU in action. |
Very active contest. Busy during daylight too. Curteous ops. I ran 20 more radials over the lawn and my short vertical really worked. 73
My four EWE |
tx ant Delta Loop ( 31 mts tower ) |
see on http://digilander.libero.it/ik1ydb/
73 hope to work some of you in the CQWW 160!
Flavio
I had hoped to make my highest score in this event, this year, using an inverted vee up 170 ft. high. Finished the antenna and erection at dark on Friday evening and discovered problems with the feedline. With the cold setting in and being several hundred feet from light and ac power,with no extension cord handy,I wrote off the first night. Repaired the antenna Saturday morning and operated 13 hours from sundown Sat. evening until after sunrise on Sunday morning. Didn't make the killer score I'd hoped for but did achieve my highest overall average rate ever, and had 3 hours with rates of about 60-65 per. Still need KL7 for state #50 but did pick up a new country(ES). Next year I'll try to get my antenna up at the 200-250 ft. level. I think the ARRL 160 and CQ 160 CW are my favorite contests. Thanks to all for the qso's.
What A FUN Contest! Friday Night Was Increadible!! Very Quiet Conditions. The New Location Played Very Well! Best I Have Ever Done In This Contest. Used A IC746 And A Omni-D During This Event. It Was A Good Test Of The Recently Revived Ten Tec. Thanks To All Who Worked Me! 73s and Merry Xmas From Northen Nevada de Tim - K7XC
K7XC - Inv L Tuning Network |
K7XC - Radio Central. IC746 @ 80W and A Ten Tec Omni-D At 120W. |
K7XC - Antenna Farm. 2 ele Tribander, VHF/UHF Arrays, 80/40/10M Fan Inv Vee, 20M Inv Vee And 160M Inv L. |
K7XC - 80//40/10M Fan INV Vee In Forground, 160M Inv L In Back Ground, @ Sunrise Here In Northen Nevada. |
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