[TVARC] ARRL DX Contest

[George Briggs]

I had hoped to try for 100 countries worked, since I fell short in CQWW CW last November.However, Karen and I had tickets for The Lion King in Orlando today, so I only operated Fridaynight and Saturday, with lots of time off, and I only managed to work 79 different countries.
40M was my main band, with an inverted vee dipole up at about 20 feet at the center and 8 feetat each end.  And I fired up my Elecraft KPA500 amplifier to the tune of about 400W output.  Boy,does a real (albeit low) antenna and a little power make a world of difference.  No longer was Ithe last station in the pileup to get through, and I was even able to get answers to CQs on occasion.Overall, I would estimate that I got between 30 and 40 contacts via CQs.
I used my Elecraft antenna tuner to put the 40M vee on 80M and made 7 contacts.
On 20, 15 and 10M I used my new secret weapon - a mini-hybrid-quad 2-element beam.  It loaded upjust fine, and, even at only about 10 feet off the ground, it worked at least as well as my SteppIRvertical.  I think I will keep it.
20M stunk on Saturday as far as I could tell.  Signals were generally weak out of Europe, and contactrates were quite low.
So, here are the totals:  Band    Qs/Countries80    7/640    190/6520    97/5415    28/2010    3/3
For a total of 325 Qs, 148 Countries ===> 144,300 points
I heard Pete (K2PS) and ED (K2TE) in there plugging away.  Frank (KA1AF) and I had a little funbeating each other in back to back contacts, and Dennis (N0SMX) and I shared spots for a few minutesvia text messages.
All in all, it was a lot of fun, even though a bit disappointing.  Now, in two weeks it is the phone versionof the ARRL DX contest, and the rig belongs to Karen (K4ZDM) to chase countries in that one.
So, how did you do???73,George K2DM


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