2006 ARRL International EME Competition
12/12/2006 |
KB8RQ
I decided to run 100% JT unassisted this year. My reason was to just see how many stations I could work on JT mode. The bad thing was on the first weekend my amplifier blew up as I was getting on the second night. It did not get repaired until Tuesday. I had to order parts for it. I had a second amplifier but it did not have a tube in it nor had it ever been wired up to be able to run. With only three and half hours sleep, I was not going to try that and kill myself. Now I have both amplifiers up and running so that will never happen again.
I decided to stick to my plan anyway even with a day lost. My station setup is not a normal station for EME. I run four computers and three different radios all going to the same antenna. I transmit with the same radio all the time. The other two are use to scan the band to find new stations if nobody is answering my CQ. I use a four-port power divider with a 50 ohm load on one port to feed the radios. Each radio has a dedicated computer. The forth computer is for my auto-tracking. For the JA stations I listened 40 kHz below my TX frequency as K1JT recommended on moon net. I managed to work a lot of the JA stations. There were stations that called me on CW while I was running JT. I could see their signal but I do not have speakers set up to hear them. I need to change that so I could answer any mode. I am sure there are stations that did not like it because I only ran JT this year.
The way I feel about contest is I think a station does what he or she wants to do to have fun. This is only a hobby. I have been doing EME for over 25 years. The best thing I like about EME is being a station's first contact. I worked a new station last week for his first. It was LU1CGB. He also called me in the contest and W5UN Dave told me he also worked him. I got a E-Mail from him saying he was very happy and that he was going to upgrade his station so he could run CW also. This is where the new CW stations come from. First we have to get them on the band. Then they get excited and build better antennas. I am against splitting up this contest by modes. I agree with SM5BSZ. Splitting may help CW at first but it will kill CW in the long run. I think every operator has the right to do what he or she wants with the station. This is a hobby. We are supposed to have fun. I know I am having fun on all modes. In the contest in three days I worked 164 station and 68 multipliers. If I had changed to CW, I could have made a bigger score but that was not what I wanted to do this year. I hope this posting does not make anybody mad of what I think. This is just my own opinion.
I am now getting close to 200 DXCC countries on two meters. I hope to do that in the next two years. Thank you very much for a great contest. I will be glad to work anybody on any mode.
KB8RQ, Gary
24X13 element
http://www.spasalon.com/kb8rq/
KB8RQ@SPASALON.COM
kb8rq@Yahoo.com -- KB8RQ
I decided to stick to my plan anyway even with a day lost. My station setup is not a normal station for EME. I run four computers and three different radios all going to the same antenna. I transmit with the same radio all the time. The other two are use to scan the band to find new stations if nobody is answering my CQ. I use a four-port power divider with a 50 ohm load on one port to feed the radios. Each radio has a dedicated computer. The forth computer is for my auto-tracking. For the JA stations I listened 40 kHz below my TX frequency as K1JT recommended on moon net. I managed to work a lot of the JA stations. There were stations that called me on CW while I was running JT. I could see their signal but I do not have speakers set up to hear them. I need to change that so I could answer any mode. I am sure there are stations that did not like it because I only ran JT this year.
The way I feel about contest is I think a station does what he or she wants to do to have fun. This is only a hobby. I have been doing EME for over 25 years. The best thing I like about EME is being a station's first contact. I worked a new station last week for his first. It was LU1CGB. He also called me in the contest and W5UN Dave told me he also worked him. I got a E-Mail from him saying he was very happy and that he was going to upgrade his station so he could run CW also. This is where the new CW stations come from. First we have to get them on the band. Then they get excited and build better antennas. I am against splitting up this contest by modes. I agree with SM5BSZ. Splitting may help CW at first but it will kill CW in the long run. I think every operator has the right to do what he or she wants with the station. This is a hobby. We are supposed to have fun. I know I am having fun on all modes. In the contest in three days I worked 164 station and 68 multipliers. If I had changed to CW, I could have made a bigger score but that was not what I wanted to do this year. I hope this posting does not make anybody mad of what I think. This is just my own opinion.
I am now getting close to 200 DXCC countries on two meters. I hope to do that in the next two years. Thank you very much for a great contest. I will be glad to work anybody on any mode.
KB8RQ, Gary
24X13 element
http://www.spasalon.com/kb8rq/
KB8RQ@SPASALON.COM
kb8rq@Yahoo.com -- KB8RQ
Photo Gallery
-
KB8RQ EME antenna
Back
