2008 ARRL 160 Meter Contest
12/09/2008 |
N8XE
What a way to start off the Christmas season: The ARRL 160M contest. This year it was c-c-cold and snowing at the QTH. A perfect setting for topband contesting. I did not get to operate as much as I would have liked because of Holiday activities, but when I did get to operate, it sure was fun! 160M is quickly becoming one of my favorite bands and any excuse to be on topband is a good one.
My antenna is the Alpha Delta DXLB+ with a center resonate point at 1820khz. It does not have much bandwith on its own (about 20khz worth) but my elmer let me borrow his automatic tuner (thanks Steve, N8CPA!) which allowed me to tune from 1800khz all the way up to 1850khz. There was plenty of action in that window of bandwidth. The midpoint is about 35' off the ground in a "flattened-V" configuration. Not the best antenna for 160, but it seems to get out pretty well.
After visiting some friends Friday evening, I fired up the rig around 03:19UT at the bottom of the band and hunted and pounced my way up until I could not tune the antenna anymore. The noise level was not that bad so I was able to work some weaker stations. I was able to work stations that I could hear (lots of FB ops out there!!) and even some that I could not hear very well. A notable contact was with KB7Q working my weak signal from MT! (thanks!!) I was also able to get Maine which can become a rare one sometimes.
I finally shut the station down 06:15UT to get some rest. The XYL and I had an event to be at in the morning. By this time I had worked 63 contacts and roughly 40 some sections.
After a family Christmas party Saturday evening, I got home, made some hot chocolate, and headed down to the shack for the final night of operating. I started at about 1:00UT, hunted and pounced until I got to about a total of 100 qsos. This stretch included the first DX for me during the contest with KV4FZ in VI and ZF2AH in the Cayman Islands. I then decided to call CQ for the remainder of the contest.
Running stations is the most exciting part of contesting as it really gets the ticker going. And it is so much fun hearing what stations come back to you. I parked at 1800.95 in the basement (after QRL? a few times of course) and started calling CQ. This continued for about 2.5 hours until a station started calling CQ on my frequency. To be fair, this station could not hear me (because I needed NM and when I called 4 or 5 times, they could not hear me). Oh well, time to go back to H&P. Calling CQ netted me about 100 qsos so that was a fun stretch. At peak times, my rate was 89 qsos an hour which is pretty good for me.
Most of the stations I heard were stations I worked so I keep looking for that new section or station that I never worked. I purposefully looked for weak stations. When I hit the DX window (1830-1835) I heard some EU stations that could not hear me. But I did net 5K0T! I also netted two more sections, ID and SK. I finally called it at 6:41UT Sunday morning as I was pretty tired. Final tally was 215 qsos, 3 DX qsos, and a claimed score of 23267.
Some observations:
Many good ops out there on 160 with good ears! I was running 100 watts and they were picking me up no problem. Only a few cases where they could not hear me when I could hear them.
I seemed to have a direct connection to MN on 160M. Every station from MN was very solid with no QSB. I could tell if a station coming back to me was from MN because of the signal level (even calls without 0 in the call I guessed correctly most of the time HI!!!)
There is something about working 160M. Because it is such a challenge and it really puts a premium on operator skill in listening. I plan to put up a receiving antenna with some type of RF sensing switch so that I can do better at receiving. If I missed some calls because I could not hear you, I hope to fix that by the next 160M contest.
Thanks to all who worked me and to the ARRL for putting on such a great event.
See you on 160 soon!
73, Jason N8XE -- N8XE
My antenna is the Alpha Delta DXLB+ with a center resonate point at 1820khz. It does not have much bandwith on its own (about 20khz worth) but my elmer let me borrow his automatic tuner (thanks Steve, N8CPA!) which allowed me to tune from 1800khz all the way up to 1850khz. There was plenty of action in that window of bandwidth. The midpoint is about 35' off the ground in a "flattened-V" configuration. Not the best antenna for 160, but it seems to get out pretty well.
After visiting some friends Friday evening, I fired up the rig around 03:19UT at the bottom of the band and hunted and pounced my way up until I could not tune the antenna anymore. The noise level was not that bad so I was able to work some weaker stations. I was able to work stations that I could hear (lots of FB ops out there!!) and even some that I could not hear very well. A notable contact was with KB7Q working my weak signal from MT! (thanks!!) I was also able to get Maine which can become a rare one sometimes.
I finally shut the station down 06:15UT to get some rest. The XYL and I had an event to be at in the morning. By this time I had worked 63 contacts and roughly 40 some sections.
After a family Christmas party Saturday evening, I got home, made some hot chocolate, and headed down to the shack for the final night of operating. I started at about 1:00UT, hunted and pounced until I got to about a total of 100 qsos. This stretch included the first DX for me during the contest with KV4FZ in VI and ZF2AH in the Cayman Islands. I then decided to call CQ for the remainder of the contest.
Running stations is the most exciting part of contesting as it really gets the ticker going. And it is so much fun hearing what stations come back to you. I parked at 1800.95 in the basement (after QRL? a few times of course) and started calling CQ. This continued for about 2.5 hours until a station started calling CQ on my frequency. To be fair, this station could not hear me (because I needed NM and when I called 4 or 5 times, they could not hear me). Oh well, time to go back to H&P. Calling CQ netted me about 100 qsos so that was a fun stretch. At peak times, my rate was 89 qsos an hour which is pretty good for me.
Most of the stations I heard were stations I worked so I keep looking for that new section or station that I never worked. I purposefully looked for weak stations. When I hit the DX window (1830-1835) I heard some EU stations that could not hear me. But I did net 5K0T! I also netted two more sections, ID and SK. I finally called it at 6:41UT Sunday morning as I was pretty tired. Final tally was 215 qsos, 3 DX qsos, and a claimed score of 23267.
Some observations:
Many good ops out there on 160 with good ears! I was running 100 watts and they were picking me up no problem. Only a few cases where they could not hear me when I could hear them.
I seemed to have a direct connection to MN on 160M. Every station from MN was very solid with no QSB. I could tell if a station coming back to me was from MN because of the signal level (even calls without 0 in the call I guessed correctly most of the time HI!!!)
There is something about working 160M. Because it is such a challenge and it really puts a premium on operator skill in listening. I plan to put up a receiving antenna with some type of RF sensing switch so that I can do better at receiving. If I missed some calls because I could not hear you, I hope to fix that by the next 160M contest.
Thanks to all who worked me and to the ARRL for putting on such a great event.
See you on 160 soon!
73, Jason N8XE -- N8XE
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