2008 ARRL 160 Meter Contest

W1OP -- Jan 17, 2009 13:32 ET

Zaven, W1IUX, at Dayton in 1990.

Zaven, W1IUX, at W1OP adjusting the 3CX3000A7 amp he built for the PRA.

Post script: W1IUX, SK

Except among a few DX stations, he wasn’t known very well outside of his local radio club but he was responsible for thousands of contest and DX QSOs with Rhode Island. He was Zaven “Zeke” Tenkarian, W1IUX, affectionately referred to as “the old man”; he was dedicated to making Club Station W1OP a world-wide communications facility not only for contesting and DX but also for public service.

Zaven spent five years re-engineering a 13 element Collins 237B-1 Log Periodic Dipole Array, which became W1OP’s signature antenna. That antenna proved its worth in the aftermath of the Armenian Earthquake disaster of 1988 by providing the first signal heard when the band opened and the last signal heard when it closed. Constantly improving the station, he converted several commercial amplifiers to amateur use and built the club’s fast-scan ATV repeater.

160 meters, however, was his favorite band. He always endeavored to make sure W1OP was on the air for the winter 160 meter contests to ensure that Rhode Island was among the multipliers. Many years, it was the only Rhode Island station on the air in the contest. With limited real estate for 160 meters, every winter was an antenna adventure with a combination of inverted Ls, slopers, long wires and Beverages.

I operated with him in the 2007 A.R.R.L. 160m Contest, as I had for many years. A week after the contest, he suddenly and unexpectedly passed away.

Surrounded by his handiwork -– the amps, antenna tuners, and antennas – operating this past contest in December 2008 was a memorial to his contributions.

We at The Providence Radio Association miss “the old man” greatly.

R.I.P., OM.

-- John -- W1GS

VE7BGP -- Jan 2, 2009 14:28 ET

I had a lot of fun working this 160 Contest. I went in it casually to see how much fun I could have using my old FT-757GX radio on top band. You don't need the Latest and Greatest Radio to have fun Contesting. I find that simple little FT-757GX to work great for Contesting. Settings I use Fast AGC, RF Amp off and Full QSK setting. That is were the FT-757 shines the QSK at normal 20 t0 25 WPM speeds I like is great. I love the part of the Pile-up I hear while sending and am amazed when my call comes back to me and work that station. Yaesu's Classic Shift & Width works wonders pulling wanted stations out of the "Mud". -- VE7BGP

K6XN -- Dec 17, 2008 16:14 ET

This was my first rookie 160M contest effort and I loved it! I did not expect to work DX on 160M with only 150W using a 530 foot horizontal wire loop at just 60 feet elevation but I was pleasantly surprised (maybe being on a 5000 foot mountain top helped?). I could hear much east coast DX very clearly and my QRN level was very low but I wasn’t able to actually work DX until after about 9:00PM local time or during my sunrise. I was very surprised to be able to work ZF2, P40, HK, KH6 and even more surprised to have many Russian and Japanese stations responding to my CQs during my sunrise. I am now hooked on 160M contesting!!! I am planning to put up additional antennas for 160M next summer including a pair of phased 160M verticals using modified Military AB-577 towers and several beverage antennas to supplement the 580 foot horizontal loop. Murphy was elsewhere this contest weekend and the batteries, solar cells and the Honda EU2000i performed flawlessly. My antique Icom IC-751A and my CT logging programming running on MSDOS all also performed well. Even the weather cooperated as I expected that my “summer cabin” in the Sierras would have been snowed in by now. (I just got back late last night). 73, Ted, the rookie 160M contester. PS, next year I intend to bring in an extra 45 gallons of diesel fuel, run the big diesel generator during the contest rather than the Honda generator and run high power up there rather than just 150W J -- K6XN

K1NV -- Dec 15, 2008 14:00 ET

I added 70 feet to each leg of my open wire-fed 135 foot dipole, not having time to lay down a new ground system for a vertical. With the center at 50 feet, I wasn't expecting to make many contacts beyond a few states away, especially with less than 100 watts.

It was a pleasant surprise to work stations on the east coast and most points between from this southern Nevada QTH. KH6 and KV4 also went in the log. I did hear the HK0T station briefly, but didn't work him. The dipole definitely hears better than any of the verticals I have used in the past. -- K1NV

N9TF -- Dec 12, 2008 16:17 ET

SW leg running down my roofline

ENE leg going into Maple tree at 30 feet.

Still did not get my inverted L up for this years contest. Worked the contest with my low hanging Alpha Delta DX-LB at a 35-foot apex. One leg to the ENE was tied off into a tree at about 30 feet and the other leg sloped down along my roofline, laying on it in places, towards the SW at 10 feet of the ground at the end. I heard and worked a bunch of east cost and VE3. Conditions to the west were pretty light compared to past years with similar antenna. West of CO signals really dropped off. I pulled the plug early Saturday night Sunday morning to get up fresh around 5AM Sunday morning in the hopes of catching some good sigs from the west and PAC. Very disappointing, as the band was pretty quite to that direction, and no PAC heard. The light snow that fell Friday night into Saturday morning did not seem to increase noise level too much and worked everything I heard, well… except for PAC! Did work a few DX, P4, ZF2 and XE. Bettered my score from last year, in part due to finally breaking from 100% S&P to diving into running. That’s always been a big handicap for me as I’m a hunt and peck on the keyboard. Makes for a difficult time logging and running. I did get the hang of it, finally, and probably added about 150 Q’s to the log I would not have gotten with just S&P. Always a fun contest, and the one I most look forward to each year. I really hope to have antenna improvements for next year. CU all in Stew Perry and CQWW 160.

Station conditions: TS-2000 100 watts to Alpha Delta DX-LB at 35 feet

73 Gene N9TF -- N9TF

KJ4WD -- Dec 12, 2008 22:51 ET

This was my first 160 meter contest and first time on 160 meters. I don't have a 160 meter antenna. I’ve been meaning to put up a 160 meter inverted L but haven’t gotten around to it (too many contests to work!). But, I followed a suggestion from QST magazine. I disconnected the shack end of my dipole's ladder line from its balun and shorted the ends together. Then, I ran a jumper to my homebrew tuner. I didn’t expect much from the jury rig but to my pleasant surprise, I was able to load up my Kenwood TS-520S between 1.8 and 1.9 mhz with no trouble. I worked QSO's in New England, the Midwest and the Southeast. I’m sure my limited success was more of a tribute to the operating skills and the receiving equipment on the other end than due to the performance of my antenna. Fun contest! Thanks to the ARRL and all the Topband participants.

73, Carl KJ4WD -- KJ4WD

N8CPA -- Dec 12, 2008 07:42 ET

Okay. I submitted them--17 Q's; all made in the first hour of the contest, all at 10W, all with no real 160 antenna. My highlight was working K9AY. I hope he was using his terminated listening loop array when I answered his CQ. (I want one of those!)

I dropped out when others in the house started watching TV, and I got nervous imagining just what was radiating down the co-ax shield. At least, the touch lamps behaved themselves this time. After that, I never made it back into the fray, except for some delightful listening sessions. It was good to hear so many signals so low in HF.

TNX to all who pulled my signal out. One of these days, I'll put up an L and make a true effort in this contest. -- N8CPA

K0TV -- Dec 11, 2008 13:13 ET

Well, the rate junkie (N1IW) had fun at the start of the contest and just missed putting 400 QSOs in the log during the first 4 hours. He actually got the last 10 rate well over 200 a few times and kept the last 100 rate above 100 for quite a while. Watching Mike run is a lot of fun and you can tell that Mike is having fun too.

The new verticals worked pretty well but there's a little work to be done before the Stew Perry and CQWW 160. We should have that work completed in the next week or so.

Stations were packed in very tight. Frequently there were four and five stations every kHz. Finding a run frequency was difficult and many stations just came on and started calling CQ without first asking. Several times I was trying to dig a weak one out when someone just came on less than 100 Hz away and started calling CQ without even asking. Come on guys, this is supposed to be the "Gentleman's Band". Just for the record, moving off 100 Hz isn't enough.

Everyone here had a good time and we look forward to the Stew Perry and the CQWW 160 coming up.

Congratulations to everyone for a great contest.

Best 73,

Jerry - K0TV -- K0TV

N0JK -- Dec 9, 2008 13:27 ET

I live in a "no outside" antenna sub-division, with no trees either to put up wires. So to hand out a few points, I bought a 100 ft. length of 24 ga. wire from the hardware store for $4 Friday afternoon and taped it along side our house. Tossed the end up over the garage. Ran a FT-897 (no CW filter) at 50 watts and a MFJ tuner. It actually loaded up OK. I figured I might work a couple of the "big guns" with this setup. As dusk approached I turned on the radio and could hear many stations CQing away. Figured it would be pointless to call any before it got dark, but... K0PY KS went into the log at 2239 followed by K9CT IL at 2241 utc. This thing actually works! By 0410 UTC I had over 100 stations in the log "Search & Pouncing." We had to go to Tulsa Saturday to visit my son, so I shut down early. Picked up a few Qs Saturday morning including WA7LNW UT at sunrise. Got back Saturday evening and operated a few more hours. I could copy some of DX well including P40TA, ZF2AH, KV4FZ, XE2S,and ON4UN. No luck working them with my duct tape wire antenna despite many calls. But at 0337 UTC KV4FZ VI popped up on a QSB peak and came back N0? Icould tell Herb was hearing me! After a number of back and forths he got the call and KS section. Woo Hoo! Working him was the highlight of the contest. Best wishes for the Holidays and my 166 contacts are my "160M Contest" Holiday gift to you. -- N0JK

VE3CUI -- Dec 8, 2008 15:53 ET

Well, talk about feeling absolutely, 101%, STOOOOOPID...!

On the last day of the contest, at around 10:50AM, I told my XYL that I was going to take a break from decorating our Christmas tree, and excused myself to the shack to see how the daylight propagation was treating the band. Well, there were stations on the air, alright --- actually several. I refrained from working them, though, electing instead to update my manual dupe sheet so that my S&P'ing might be made error-free (yes, I still log in the prehistoric age!).

Well, I did this with the 'phones on, casually listening, when suddenly the band got quiet. I just figured the station I was monitoring simply got tired of CQ'ing. Anyway, I finished my paper updates, and started calling "CQ Test" myself --- and actually worked two stations. But then someone sent me "Test SK Test SK"...I replied with, "QRZ?", and the operator came back to say, "Test is over."(!!!).

Sure enough, I checked the rule sheet atop my p.s., and there it was: the contest had ENDED at 11:00 AM!!! I felt like a real dunce...

But then again, I was in some good company, because the two stations that I'd worked were logged several minutes past the closing hour! Hi Hi.

I don't know why, but for some reason I thought the event closed at 6:00 PM. Go figure.

Anyway, in the midst of the fray I managed to work a new one for my 160-meter DXCC total here, i.e. my #130...I couldn't be more pleased! Many thanks to all who participated in this, the 33rd anniversary of my own off-and-on participation...!

~73~ Eddy (VE3CUI) -- VE3CUI

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