[SJDXA] report from W2GD

Tue Dec 6 15:41:05 EST 2011

WOW....

What a weekend.....coming from 70,000 points back at sunrise on Saturday to
edge out the Bulgarian team at K1LZ in the last hour of the contest Sunday
morning.  It doesn't get much better or sweeter! 

And ending up in second place claimed overall is pretty damn good too when
you consider the NE antenna failure we had at the start.  I don't feel bad
losing to the best engineered 160M station on the planet (W8JI), especially
when its being piloted by two exceptionally skilled CW guys (K1TO and
VE7ZO).  They beat us on QSOs, not mults.

The total TEAM effort was terrific leading up to and during this
contest.....and we never gave up!

At breakfast Sunday morning we did the regular contest debrief.....and below
are your comments:

WHAT WENT WELL

1.  The new ACOM 2S1 Switching system worked great and the amplifier was
quite tolerent of freq. excursions.  Less manual antenna switching
translated into more contacts and multipliers worked.  We can now retire the
transfer switch.

2.  We were clearly loud into EU and S.A and were heard in SEA too.....under
marginal conditions.  This suggests raising the TX antenna is paying
dividends, we have gained something.     There were very few situations all
weekend where someone tried to steal our frequency...and won.

3.  The beverages (with one exception) all sounded great....very quiet and
directive.  The west beverage was the only exception.

4.  Because of the new Acom 2S1 switching system, we never had to use the
Inverted L backup antenna.

5.  The RBN/Cluster connections worked perfectly all weekend.

6.  We enjoyed absolutely quiet conditions all weekend, virtually no QRN
crashes or line noise.

7.  It was great to have the Peters KU2C and WW2Y join us this weekend, and
N2HM pitch-hitting for W20B Saturday morning.  
And W2RQ did a terrific job running EU during his short guest appearance
Saturday night.

WHAT DIDN'T WORK SO WELL

1.  NE sloper failure in the first 20 minutes of the contest cost us EU
contacts the first night, and hurt the run rate as we went through the
process of diagnosis and repair.  A bad coax connector was found to be the
problem.

2.  West beverage definitely sounds 'funky' and needs to be checked or
restrung.  We had to use the NW and SE beverages much too often when the
west beverage should have worked.

3.  Short vertical is not hearing as well as it did the past two years.
Found a broken wire going to the inductor in the box but even after repair
it still sounded 'dead'.  

4.  NE sloper tunes in an abnormal manner when shortened or lengthened.
Could be the bottom end is too close to the loop.

5.  W1GD's K3 came up dead Thursday night just before the contest.
Fortunately we had the K9RS loaner to put in the mult stn. position and my
756ProIII for the Slave position.  This all worked out quite well.

REPAIR AND IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS BEFORE STEW PERRY DEC. 17th

1.  Pull the NE sloper futher away from the delta loop, so the end of the
bottom half element is ~20' away.  FIX the wire splice at the end of the
element (per Marty).  Moving the feedpoint further out will require
extending the feedline about 20 feet where it is attached to the tower at
105', and also installing a new unspliced 100' rope in the pulley at the
bottom of the element.  Once the element is repositioned, retune NE sloper.
While on tower, also lengthen the WSW feedline a few feet so it is not as
taught. 

2.  Replace the West beverage wire.  IIts now 9 yrs old and has 3 or more
splices.  Reuse the wire I pulled out of the woods Saturday that was
supposed to be a NE beverage element but was never used.  Its length is
unknown, but could be 900 feet.    N2OO will supply GPS coordinates for up
to 900 feet in 50 foot increments to facilitate installation in a straight
line and true west direction.  Check beverage transformer for proper 9:1
operation.  Check west beverage feedline for loss.  Replace transformer and
coax if necessary

3.  Check short vertical construction.  Test for resonance at the antenna
with an MFJ unit.  Replace inductor in the box.  Check for bad connections
to the top loading wires.  Check feedline again, each 1000' segment
seperately. as well as total length, for a break somewhere or something
wrong at the splice.  Consider moving the short vertical closer to the
building by 1000' if we can't make it work where it is now.

4.  Revisit tuning of Inverted L.  Consider installing a 500 to 1000 mmf
variable in series with antenna element to tune our reactance.

The Stew Perry TBDC event is SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17th.  We should be on-site
at 9 a.m. and plan to start the operation at 4:00 p.m.

73,

John W2GD/3

See ya' in the Pileups!

73!

Bob Schenck, N2OO

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Fun stuff for hams:

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www.cafepress.com/qrostuff

www.cafepress.com/cqdx

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