[EIDXA] 160m Contest - Practicing what you preached!

[Steve Sutterer]

Rick, I enjoyed your note re: the CQ WW 160m CW contest over the weekend. I
took advantage of the milder temperatures Sat. to do some wind damage
repairs on my Butternut vertical and in the process I reinstalled the 160m
base loading coil too. In less than 5 hours, mostly Sat. night between 10pm
and 3am Sun. I logged 175 QSOs on 160m including 42 states, 8 VE provinces,
and 9 countries. All done at about 75W out of my FT1000MkV (no, not the
FT817 for this, and definitely no sand for my toes!) to the base-loaded 26ft
Butternut vertical. To give that some perspective, that is comparable to a
7ft base loaded vertical on 40m. It was a lot of fun for someone who has
spent very little time on 160m, and I suspect conditions were pretty good.

I alternated about 50/50 between doing Search and Pounce vs CQ'ing. The
highlight for me was being called by DR1A during a CQ run. I about fell out
of my chair!

DX included C6, VP9, KH6, EA8, G, CU, DL. I heard but couldn't work EI, GD,
CT, EA, KL7, I, PJ2, P4, HC and HI.

Am looking forward to ARRL DX CW weekend.

73, Steve AK0M