[ADXA] ARRL CW DX contest - W5RZ

[Scott Branyan]

Thanks for the honorable mention, Dennis, hi!

I had fun. I'm recovering from a bout with Covid so it was definitely a low energy effort here. I logged 21 new DX QSOs, seemed like a good number to stop on, and the most I've ever logged for a contest. Just submitted my log. Dittos on 15m. I crawled on that band a number of times. Lots of good stations, and picked up JH7 late in the day--very weak, but managed to log him.  Worked four bands.

Will look forward to other reports. Kudos on the 160m effort!!!

73,
Scott/W5AAJ



-----Original Message-----
From: adxa-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:adxa-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Dennis Schaefer
Sent: Sunday, February 20, 2022 5:54 PM
To: ADXA
Subject: [ADXA] ARRL CW DX contest - W5RZ

I had fun in the contest - did my usual 7-8 hours of a 48 hour contest.  Results were not terrible for a very casual effort - 534 Q's, 205 multipliers, 327,000 points.

15 meters was best with good openings to EU and JA.  I was looking forward to a good EU opening on 10 meters but it never happened.  I got one station here and there, and worked SM, G, F, EA, etc, but there were never numbers of EU stations on 10.  I did work a handful of ZL/VK and it seemed like every licensed KH6.  


The surprise was 160 meters. I have never really had an antenna for that band.  The best I ever did was with my 130 foot zepp with the feedline tied together to make a T vertical.  


I have an EFHW out in the woods, about 200 feet from the house, that I use as a second antenna when I want to monitor on another rig.  I took the EFHW transformer out and fed it against ground as a (sorta) Inverted-L.  There was no counterpoise, only a short ground rod for a static drain for the EFHW.  The wire went up about 25 feet, sloped as it went out to a height of 35 feet, and then came back down.  I thought it might get me a contact with Bill at ZF5T.  I was very surprised to work 13 stations in 10 multipliers, most in Europe.  I ended up getting ZF5T on all bands, and also ZF1A.  The convoluted, much too low, inverted-L performed like a champ!

Kenwood TS-590S, Force 12 C-3 at 56 feet, 40 and 80M dipoles, and 160M inverted-L.  Amp is an AL-811 400-500 watts.

I heard ZN and FUV and FXB a lot.  Also others, I'm sure.  I heard K5UR and W5AAJ - yeah, lots of ADXA'ers on.

73,
Dennis