[PaQSO] PA QSO Party

[John Lindvay]

My son-in-law, Wes KB3PPI and my daughter, Emily KB3PPG flew in from
Calgary, British Columbia, to be with me and my wife at Wes's hunting camp
near Sheffield in Warren County for the QSO party.  They flew into Buffalo
and drove to Erie and met us. We all drove down to Warren Friday night. Wes
brought his Yeasu 897 transceiver and a MFJ manual tuner.  I took an IC-718
transceiver and an IC -746 Pro to operate.  I went to the Cleveland hamfest
and month earlier and picked up what I thought was an 80 meter dipole and
enough material to make a trap dipole for 80-40 meters.  I also took an army
surplus discone antenna for 6 meters.  Saturday morning we discovered that
the 80 meter antenna was really a 20 meter dipole.  (I thought the coiled
wire was a few turns short.)  We then built the 40-80 meter dipole.  Wes put
up an army surplus pole and fastened the rope guys to the ground.  We used a
pulley arrangement to pull up the dipoles to the top of the 25 ft. pole.
After constructing it, we discovered the SWR was much, much more than 3:1 on
80 meters.  So we jumpered out the traps and the SWR came down to 1.5:1.  So
much for the traps being good for an 80-40 meter dipole. We had a good run
on 80 meters Saturday night and worked a quite a few stations.  We woke
Sunday and realized all the action would be on 40 meters, so we cut the wire
right in front of the traps and inserted some insulators.  We tried 40
meters and the SWR was good!  Our very first contact complained there was a
terrible buzzing on our signal.  At first we thought it was the mike, so we
switched it with the 718 mike.  Still had that terrible buzzing.  We then
swapped out the whole radio and still had the buzzing.  We then connected to
the 20 meter antenna and the buzzing went away.  However, we didn't want to
operate on 20 but on 40 where all the action was.  We found out that the
only radio that didn't produce the buzzing was the Yeasu 897.  We never did
find out why the buzzing and didn't take time to investigate; we had a party
to operate.  So we ran the contest on 40 meters from the 897.  We monitored
6 meters throughout the contest but only worked one station, KD8MG/3 in
Jefferson County.  6 meters was a big disappointment because of the time and
effort to put up the antenna.  Our main mode of operating was to go up and
down the band working stations calling CQ.  We also kept looking for a free
and clear frequency until we found one, then we started calling CQ.  It took
two operators, one to talk on the radio and one to operate the computer and
enter information in the log.  We would take turns calling CQ.  My daughter
Emily was at first a little mike shy, but after a few moments was working
like a pro.  Why is it that hams act like gentlemen and come back to a YLs
first every time?  We worked 206 contacts, 57 counties, and 27 sections.  We
had a good time, no TV, no cell phones, just good conversation with our
in-laws and ham radio.

 

 

John Lindvay WB3IFD

jlindvay at msn.com

814-455-1061 (h)

814-490-0253 (c)