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Yukon Territory Sweepstakes Stalwart VY1JA to be Active on SS CW

10/15/2013

J Allen, VY1JA, will end his radio silence this year and take part in the 2013 ARRL November Sweepstakes CW. He’s also hoping to become more active in Amateur Radio again.

“Remember to watch for VY1JA on about 21.027 and 7.027. I will need your patience, because I have been essentially QRT the last 6 years,” he said in a CQ-Contest reflector post. Allen said he’ll only be available on 40 and 15 meters this year because those are the only two places his quarter-wave 40 meter ground place will operate.

“I have no backup antenna, because bad weather shut me down,” he told ARRL, adding that he’s not planning to operate for the SS phone weekend. J says he’s now running a Yaesu FT-990 and an Alpha 9500 amplifier (both with appropriate backups). He describes himself, “the operator,” as “old and worn out but still breathing (no spare because they threw away the mold).”

Down the road he hopes to complete the installation of a quarter-wave vertical for 80 and possibly a broadside pair of phased verticals directed at the US for SS. He reports that the verticals are in place, but he did not have time to trench his coax feed line, “and cold weather is here.” So finding VY1JA on 80 meters this year “would take a miracle,” he said. He also wants to set up a crank-up tilt-over tower with a multiband Yagi for the higher bands. He says he’s done with climbing.

J also is looking forward to doing some “weak signal” work on VHF and UHF as well as at the other end of the spectrum, 137 kHz. Then there’s the hope of operating more RTTY contests and wrapping up WAS on 6 meters.

“I just hope Jiminy Cricket was right about dreams coming true,” he concluded.



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