ARRL DX Contest 2013

A solar flare preceded the start of this contest and conditions Friday night were just terrible. A "K" index of 4 is very poor and the bands reacted because of it.Sunpots were down around 88 and even the "A" index was high.  I spent very little time fighting conditions Friday evening and had a few contacts before calling it quits for the night.
  Saturday was a fair improvement in the morning and I bounced between 10m and 15m before settling on 10m for a very good S & P operation. Ten meters actually for Me was very good from 1700 UTC and I stayed with it till the band closed before sunset. The lower bands weren't very good at this location for the rest of the contest when I was on. I managed some hard fought  contacts on 20m and 40m but none on 75m or 160m which was disappointing because I heard HK1NA on 160m at about S9 but they just CQed in My face! 100w just wasn't enough I guess. I truthfully didn't stay up late enough Saturday for any decent chance at contacts on the lower frequencies but that is typical for Me-- hard to stay awake!
  After Church Sunday morning and Lunch I was back operating but it was again not great conditions and lots of stations I had already worked.It wasn't till later I heard from several other contesters about the short but good opening to Europe on 10m while I was away! Oh well-priorities!! I had some interesting contacts such as OA4SS who commented on the number of Minnesota stations. If He only realized some of them were playing Dx at V4,VP5H and KP2 land!! All of which I had contacts with-- I guess for them zero calls are easily heard!
  I worked KP2M and 8P5A on 40,20,15 and 10m for the highest multiple band contacts. I worked 88 countries (DXCC's) and had 193 contacts for a score of 50,952. Not too shabby for a ground mounted vertical and a 10m monobander at 20 feet using only 100w!  My rotor was stuck South for My 10m Yagi till early Saturday after the sun came out and it thawed.   My CAT port on My Ft-950 is still not working so I had to be careful and switch it manually in the N1MM logging program so it would log the correct band. Its so much easier when its atomatic!
  I hope to add several more new DXCC including French Guiana who I worked on 15m. Several others are the same countries but different calls who maybe will be LOTW users. One can only hope!
73---Tim

 

Preparing for DX contest

The ARRL International SSB DX contest is this weekend and I've been doing a little preparation.I downloaded the latest N1MM contest logger version 13.02.03 and the associated WL_CTY_DAT country list and also the Master_DTA for DX countries. A prelimanary look and all appears OK. Also loaded the new contest into My logger.
 I've also been testing My antennas because My Butternut HF6V was still out of service and I would really like a backup for 15m. My inverted L might cover OK but doesn't appear like any other antenna will-not the Dipole which has never liked 15m for some odd reason but maybe,just maybe My short G5RV might. Then during further testing My HF6V magically started working but I'm not holding My breath- temperature sensitive maybe??
  No matter what i'll give it a try this weekend.My big limiting factor will be as usual-BIC ( but in chair :) time which can tough.
 Hope to hear you on the bands-- Friday Night 6pm CST till sunday 6pm.
73--Tim

CQ 160m contest 2013

This contest starts a little early for Me as I've just barely arrived home from work when it starts. I did check the bands right away and made a few contacts but the 160m band was very noisy at My location. I took My time getting back to the shack hoping it would be better conditions but both nights until My time to quit for the night the conditions only marginally improved.
   I noticed another issue the first night which had Me frustrated-- N1MM kept asking for certain contacts for the correct section. It didn't dawn on Me until the next day I had set up N1MM for an ARRL 160m contest, not the CQ version! I emailed the MWA reflector and later received a detailed answer to correct this mistake but by then I had already started to re-enter all contacts in preperation for Saturday night. Luckily or not , I didn't have a huge log. I kept being pulled away from the shack both nights by other duties and fun activities. Very typical contest for Me!
  This contest did afford Me a great chance to check how well My dipole and inverted L antenna played against each other. I truthfully have to say it was very even. I did My usual S & P operation and would use the dipole tuning one direction and then later switch to the "L" for the return direction! Several times neither antenna would cut thru!Many times one or the other was able to catch the attention of the CQing contestant. A very satisfying experiment during contest conditions.Glad I have both antennas as an option.
  I also had several extra cool contacts with several Hams I talk to occasionally. One heard Me and jumped ahead and started Cqing to get Me to stop.Had a real nice QSO with him and later a station with an unfamiliar call introduced Himself as a VHF net control operator I talk to on sunday nights when He's running the NLRS net. He was operating some else's station during the contest.Cool.
  It was a little disappointing to not  better My last several years score with this contest but I had no DX contacts and very few Canadians. Not much west coast either. Maybe if I could keep at it till later at night I would catch some other areas  but just get too sleepy--
 less than 60 total contacts but once the kinks were worked out , as most contests--it was Fun!!
73---Tim

 

Lack of Activity

We have finally added to snow totals with one big storm and several small ones. It actually feels like a normal winter now. Forecast shows more snow later this week. This much accumulation does make it difficult to walk Our dog on the trails thru the woods . It also keeps Me from investigating the issue with My ground mounted vertical. I think from previous testing I have an open somewhere on the coax from the shack to the base of the antenna. The depth of the snow makes it almost impossible to continue until it melts. Appears to be a Spring project and My G5RV will also be looked at closer then. During a previous contest I had to resort to My back up antennas-G5RV being one of them and it kept changing tuning. It changed alot so maybe a broke wire or bad connection but no matter it needs TLC.
  I'm glad Google finally fixed the "add Picture" portion of this blog. Works great now!
 Not much Ham Radio activity- too much out of town work and overtime. Guess its better to do it now than summer! :) Its also not as much fun chasing DX when main DX antenna not available!
  73---Tim

HF6V trouble, #87 & MNQSO party 2013

This is the trail that leads to My ground mounted Butternut vertical antenna. We presently have about one foot of snow on the ground so I'm still able to use this trail to walk My dog and it passes by My antenna. I noticed recently the SWR on all bands was greater than 25 so it appears to be open somewhere.

This is the base after excavating- You can see the coil to ground and the coax where it hooks up. I wish it was a better picture . I inspected this area but could find no visible problem so I connected  a  jumper across the terminals and checked with an ohmmeter from inside. It showed open so the problem is from the inside to the base of the antenna but with the snow and ice fixing this will probably be a spring project. Oh well i have a G5RV as a backup to cover 40m and several other antennas for the other bands.                                                                                                                                                                                            
                                                  

Log book of the World recently showed another DXCC to make it 87 confirmed. RV1CC from European Russia was My latest. Slow but moving towards that 100 goal!

The Minnesota QSO Party contest was Saturday and I had planned for a full day contesting.My vertical antenna i use for 40m-15m was now not available but i assumed my G5RV would be Ok for 40m and My "inverted L" for 15m with My trusty old dipole for 160,80 and 20m. If 10m was open I have the Yagi.

Unfortunately the G5RV has a weird problem- soon after tuning it goes way out of tolerance. I had contacts who mentioned My nice signal,then next transmission, i noticed SWR way high again.Retune, and the same thing. My Inverted L was also giving Me fits. Only antenna working well was My dipole and it hates 40 and 15m! I eventually had enough frustration and gave up on the contest until almost the end when several mobiles I know need My contact on 160m. so all wasn't lost--still fun for a time. I have some antenna maintenance this spring!!

73---Tim