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Hot air balloon floating behind quad. |
73-
Not bad for 90 minutes total operating time, all on an 80-meter inverted vee up 35 feet! So, is there a trophy for that category or what?
No, i wasn't in multi-operator ! (with my daughter Aude, 3 years old) |
Sunday, taken by other duties, i couldn't be on the air and made only 5 QSO (2 with TR8CA that kindly agreed to QSY in CW for me).
As a beginner, this was also a good way to have new band/modes (10M and/or CW): 14 have been done.
See you next year !
Laurent, F1JKJ
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My station five years ago!! |
Feedpoint construction |
In the air !! |
Having been #1 Phone in Oceania for the past 3 consecutive years from Sydney (VK2), the intention was to attempt to secure #1 Phone again in 2006. Still having around 100kg of spare aluminium tubing sitting in Darwin (VK8) from the CQWW SSB event, most of this material could be effectively recyclable into a reasonable sort of 10m yagi.
The design used was an 8 element wide spaced yagi to occupy the available 18m long boom. I did have a 9 element design that came out at 21m long, but was very conscious of the debilitating heat and high humidity in the ‘wet season’ in northern Australia in December. How does this affect the size of the yagi ?.. well it comes down to basic human stamina in building a yagi structure, especially when it is only really sensible to work in the cooler weather between 5:30am and 9:30am. None the less the mind still plays tricks in the heat – a term referred to in the Northern Territory(VK8) as ‘going troppo’.
I operated from the Darwin Surf Lifesaving Club workshop.
Day 1 of the contest started at 0530am for me, as the very final assembly to the antenna was done before 6:30am. The lifting equipment (tower) arrived at 7am, and got the yagi off the ground about 5’. Did a final adjustment to the hairpin match to give a flat VSWR from 28.300 to 28.500 (no intention or ability to use CW). Raising the antenna to about 30m above ground moved the VSWR band up about 40kHz – no issue. The 0000z contest start kicked off at 09:30am local, and the only station I could hear was an FK8.. whom I never did get to work :-{ Only 25 stations in the log after 3 hours.
Very odd propagation to the USA was experienced, with what seemed an invisible wall between us. Not even W0SD or K2PS was heard, and those that were worked, were beaming around 300 degrees !
Day 2 of the event had me raise the antenna from 30m to 35m above ground, [compromising my ability to beam due East] it opened my footprint into JA, EU and AF significantly.
Only managed 8 US states [HI,TX,CA,AZ,CO,OK,UT and AK ], no Canadians and 55 countries for a total of about 460 QSO’s. This effectively doubled my 2005 score, but was very disappointed not to work more of the north American multipliers.
Major issues with a +50dB over 9 radar occupying 28.460 to 28.490, but unable to get a beam heading, as I could not watch the S meter and turn the yagi (manually) at the same time.
Another interesting statistic... 410 of the 460 qso's made were over the 6,500km (4,000 miles) mark !!
Seasons greetings from VK,
David VK8AA (VK2CZ)
When Dimitris SV1CIB told me to run the 10m contest, i thought he is crazy. But after some thought i told myself why not. So we went in a mountain close to our city (abt 950m high)where i have a house. It was like a field day because we hadn't a rotor to turn the antenna and we assembled all (including antenna) the Friday! Antenna was a 4el quad but the swr was too high on cw (3:1). We borrowed a tuner and after all we were on the air Saturday morning. What a dissapointment. We could hear 3-4 stations and that's all. Spyros SV1JMO and me (SV1DPI) blamed Dimitris. Why you told us to run this damned contest? We were calling cq abt 1 hour and no replies! But after the noon the band changed. It was much better. Finally we went to sleep after 2300 local hour! The band was open for us until then! Mainly Europe and a lot of EA8's, no JA, no W's but the band was open! Yes it was nice. Next morning the band was not better but our soul was the best! We worked many Europeans agn and we had a good opening in afternoon. Late afternoon we worked the first USA station. It was K4RV from SC. After that we worked some more W's but all from FL. We really enjoyed the contest, even it was in the bottom of the cycle. Many stations gave us numbers like 001 to 005. We are sure that many of them confused our call especially on cw where they thought us like hz1a, iz1a, uz1a, s71a and who knows what else.... We identified our selves almost in every qso. Our call was SZ1A. SZ prefix is what the ministry gives to Greek clubs. That's why the SZ... Tnx to all who worked us. Very soon our log will be on LotW. Qsls also ok via buro or direct in qrz.com address. We want to thanks also Cristopher SW1HKX, Apostolos SW1JMF, Dimitris SV1SN and Kostas SV1CQN, who helped us a lot.
Best 73 a part of SZ1A team SV1CIB, SV1DPI, SV1JMO)
PS. We missed the company of SV1BJW, SV1ELF and SV1JMC who were in our initial plans... Next time guys...
Equipment
yaesu ft1000mp mark-v field
icom pw1
4el LBA quad with Dimitris (hi hi) rotor
SV1JMO is running a pileup |
Dimitris SV1CIB copy weak stations |
Me, SV1DPI |
The antenna, a 4el LBA quad |
Our view to USA, Europe, Japan |
CW was alive and well on 10M! Didn't hear a lot of DX but stateside was very active.
My 5 element monobander |
I was really surprised with the openings on the band. I expected to hear very little. Worked some Sat and some Sunday. Would have been able to get a few more multipliers if the stations calling CQ were not so fast to call CQ again.
I needed several states but couldnt get my call in between CQs. Tried N4JRY,JRY and just RY. but when I let up on mic button CQer was calling again.CQing stations were 59+ and could have heard me. Slow down you guys and you might hear some more of us!!
Made 142 contacts and 19 countries. Had a great time. Looking forward to next time.
N4JRY Jerry Timmonsville SC..
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