[TVARC] ARRL DX Contest

[Daniel McKinney]

George sounds like a job well done!!!

On Sun, Feb 18, 2018 at 8:54 PM George Briggs <k2dm at att.net> wrote:

> 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 Friday
> night 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 feet
> at 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 I
> the 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 up
> just fine, and, even at only about 10 feet off the ground, it worked at
> least as well as my SteppIR
> vertical.  I think I will keep it.
>
> 20M stunk on Saturday as far as I could tell.  Signals were generally weak
> out of Europe, and contact
> rates were quite low.
>
> So, here are the totals:  Band    Qs/Countries
> 80    7/6
> 40    190/65
> 20    97/54
> 15    28/20
> 10    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 fun
> beating each other in back to back contacts, and Dennis (N0SMX) and I
> shared spots for a few minutes
> via text messages.
>
> All in all, it was a lot of fun, even though a bit disappointing.  Now, in
> two weeks it is the phone version
> of 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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