[Elecraft] FD 2002

[Larry Cahoon]

After pestering the local club about scoring advantage of running QRP 
Battery for a year or more Tuesday evening prior to FD the club's main SSB 
operator after saying there was no way he would go QRP challenged me.  I 
jumped at the chance.  Last year I ran the same setup as this year, but we 
all used my call.  I looked at the scoring afterwards and it was clear I 
had amassed more points as a QRP battery station than had the entire club 
as a QRO station - even when they counted my QSOs in the total.

I signed 2A for the event, but never ran more than one transmitter.  Seems 
no one else ran CW.  It turned out the be the biggest club showing for a 
number of years.  The other fellows put four stations on the air.  Three 
ran SSB and one ran digital. They use two vertical and two G5RVs.  I used 
two doublets fed with ladder line.  They variously signed 3A and 5A.  We 
don't treat FD seriously as a contest most of the time.  It is a time to go 
out have fun and eat.

But I am waiting for them to total their scores to show them that I beat 
them hands down.  They spend too much time away from the rigs. If I ever 
see their logs I'll report on the results.

My station was the K2 (#665). If you worked WD3P you worked me.  If you 
worked W3SMR you helped the competition.  I ran a 44 ft and a 66 ft ant fed 
with ladder line. My biggest error was letting the ladder line lay on the 
ground.  The LDG tunner didn't like it either with the 4:1 or the 1:1 
balun.  But I wasn't smart enough to get them off the ground.  As a result 
the K2 just refused to put out more than about a watt on 80 meter.  It 
tuned up just fine at home afterward into the dummy load.  So it was not 
the rig that was the problem.

Take this year was down about 15-20% percent from last year with 237 valid 
QSO.  Most of the loss was caused by not being able to effectively use 80 
meters.  Here in the east 40 meters was the band of choice where I racked 
up 168 QSO.  That was helped along by an hour long run of about 60 QSOs 
Saturday afternoon.  I sat on 7.004 for at least an hour before I got 
chased off the frequency.  Never let it be said that running QRP (I was 
running 2-3 watts) you can't hold a frequency.  I picked up WQ4RP and N3EPA 
during that time.  I had some trouble working on 20 meters as the other 
four nearby stations seemed to congregate there.  The digital station 
operator said that was about the only band he could find any activity on.

The power supply was two 5 AH gel cells charging from two 5 Watt solar 
panels.  They were charged by solar power prior to the contest.  So except 
for three QSOs when I was searching for reasons for the low power on 80 
meters late Saturday night I was totally solar.  The test battery for those 
three QSOs was not solar charged. The batteries held up real well.  Sunday 
morning they read about 12.1 volts.  Also drawing current was the LDG tuner 
- I was not using the one with the latching relays - that one seemed to 
have more trouble matching the antennas than did the older model.

I had fun - camped out for the night - my youngest insisted on coming along 
and camping as well - she is only 12.  WX was perfect Saturday - got up to 
90 Sunday. But it was bright and sunny both days without a hint of rain or 
thunderstorms.  I've already planed for how I'm going to keep the ladder 
line off the ground next year.

73 de Larry........WD3P in MD
http://www.wd3p.net/