2007 IARU HF World Championships
07/20/2007 |
TA2RX/QRP
Last year I had joined the contest from my home and scored 9th in the world. This year I decided to do some field work, so as to get away from the RF clutter in Istanbul (I live within half a mile to all broadcast antennas), hoping to make a better score. I chose Sile, a suburb of Istanbul by Black Sea, as my location for this year's contest. For security reasons I chose Isik University Campus and asked for permission to use their premises, which they kindly granted.
Next was the task of preparing a good antenna. I have got a home made four band inverted vee at my roof. However, it is not very convenient to use a similar setup for field work. So, I decided to give my Diamond W-1080 a try. TA2IK, Kadir, was my saviour to adjust its SWR, with his antenna analyzer. We spent a total of four hours in doing this.
The three days before the contest TA1HZ, TA1FR and me were busy running TC25SG, a special event station celebrating the 25th anniversary of Turkish Coast Guard, operating, again, from the field. So, when I packed everything the night before the contest, I was already quite tired. As a result, I could not get up early on the day of the contest and when I reached my operating field, after an hour's drive, it was already 10:00 UTC.
It took me a total of four hours, under a hot summer sky, to erect my antenna and setup my station. My initial intention was to setup a long wire for 160 m but when I reached the location, the only place to hang the wire from was the flagpole but because there was already a flag on the pole, it was out of question. So, I had to forget 160 m, once again. I was already two hours late into contesting so I got on the air straightaway, after a little bite to eat, and started working. Photos are at my website: http://www.archimac.org/TA2RX/Events/IARUHF2007.html
Although I would prefer my homemade inverted vees to W-1080 by way of performance, I presume this was the price I had to pay for having an all band antenna. So, I had to give up the ability to reach certain stations. The surprise of the day was the 21 Mhz opening to South America after the sunset. They all sounded as if they were running kilowatts next door. It was a pity my K2 was not aligned properly to give anything more than 3.7 watts on 80m. So, I could not get hold of most of the stations I could hear on that band. It was another pity I could not work TC2HQ, the TA HQ station, because they were at the edge of my skip zone and my 5 watts were not enough to reach them. Over all it was quite fun, although I had wished I was running QRO to be able to work some of the rare stations I could hear.
During the last few hours of the contest, the weather got REALLY hot, even under the shade. Fortunately by the time I was dismantling my antenna and repacking everything, it was slightly cooler. Otherwise I would have got severe sun burns, since it took me another two hours to get ready for the road. By the time I got back home and unloaded everything, I was about to sleep on foot, so I hit the bed straightaway.
My special thanks go to TA2IK, Kadir for generously sparing his time to adjust the SWR of my antenna and to Isik Universty administration for making this fieldwork possible. -- TA2RX
Next was the task of preparing a good antenna. I have got a home made four band inverted vee at my roof. However, it is not very convenient to use a similar setup for field work. So, I decided to give my Diamond W-1080 a try. TA2IK, Kadir, was my saviour to adjust its SWR, with his antenna analyzer. We spent a total of four hours in doing this.
The three days before the contest TA1HZ, TA1FR and me were busy running TC25SG, a special event station celebrating the 25th anniversary of Turkish Coast Guard, operating, again, from the field. So, when I packed everything the night before the contest, I was already quite tired. As a result, I could not get up early on the day of the contest and when I reached my operating field, after an hour's drive, it was already 10:00 UTC.
It took me a total of four hours, under a hot summer sky, to erect my antenna and setup my station. My initial intention was to setup a long wire for 160 m but when I reached the location, the only place to hang the wire from was the flagpole but because there was already a flag on the pole, it was out of question. So, I had to forget 160 m, once again. I was already two hours late into contesting so I got on the air straightaway, after a little bite to eat, and started working. Photos are at my website: http://www.archimac.org/TA2RX/Events/IARUHF2007.html
Although I would prefer my homemade inverted vees to W-1080 by way of performance, I presume this was the price I had to pay for having an all band antenna. So, I had to give up the ability to reach certain stations. The surprise of the day was the 21 Mhz opening to South America after the sunset. They all sounded as if they were running kilowatts next door. It was a pity my K2 was not aligned properly to give anything more than 3.7 watts on 80m. So, I could not get hold of most of the stations I could hear on that band. It was another pity I could not work TC2HQ, the TA HQ station, because they were at the edge of my skip zone and my 5 watts were not enough to reach them. Over all it was quite fun, although I had wished I was running QRO to be able to work some of the rare stations I could hear.
During the last few hours of the contest, the weather got REALLY hot, even under the shade. Fortunately by the time I was dismantling my antenna and repacking everything, it was slightly cooler. Otherwise I would have got severe sun burns, since it took me another two hours to get ready for the road. By the time I got back home and unloaded everything, I was about to sleep on foot, so I hit the bed straightaway.
My special thanks go to TA2IK, Kadir for generously sparing his time to adjust the SWR of my antenna and to Isik Universty administration for making this fieldwork possible. -- TA2RX
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TA2RX/QRP at work...
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