12/01/2004 | VE7CA This was the first time I have operated in the SSCW contest with more than 5 watts. It was time to burn in my homebrew all band 100W transceiver during a real contest. As it turned out, QRP would have done just fine with the great conditions on Saturday, then, Sunday afternoon even a 100 Watts didn't always succeed in snagging a needed contact.

The most interesting story though is what happened on Sunday afternoon. Aurora, even as low a 20 meters. Pointing my Yagi NE, many stations not only had the typical aurora swishing sound but also produced, when using a narrow 250Hz IF filter, terrible clicking sounds streched over several hundred Hz. It took me a minute to realize what was going on but when I turned my yagi S the same stations that sounded clicky when pointing NE now sounded normal. A check on 6 meters also confirmed a strong aurora opening as west coast stations were calling CQ A and working central US stations off the aurora curtain as well as some even working KH6 stations and later some KL7s.

Good fun and great time to test a homebrew rig. No fire running full 100 watts hour after hours. Hurrah!

CU you all in the next contest.

73

VE7CA Markus Hanen
ve7ca@rac.ca
Web: www.qsl.net/ve7ca -- VE7CA