12/17/2008 | K6XN This was my first rookie 160M contest effort and I loved it! I did not expect to work DX on 160M with only 150W using a 530 foot horizontal wire loop at just 60 feet elevation but I was pleasantly surprised (maybe being on a 5000 foot mountain top helped?). I could hear much east coast DX very clearly and my QRN level was very low but I wasnt able to actually work DX until after about 9:00PM local time or during my sunrise. I was very surprised to be able to work ZF2, P40, HK, KH6 and even more surprised to have many Russian and Japanese stations responding to my CQs during my sunrise. I am now hooked on 160M contesting!!! I am planning to put up additional antennas for 160M next summer including a pair of phased 160M verticals using modified Military AB-577 towers and several beverage antennas to supplement the 580 foot horizontal loop. Murphy was elsewhere this contest weekend and the batteries, solar cells and the Honda EU2000i performed flawlessly. My antique Icom IC-751A and my CT logging programming running on MSDOS all also performed well. Even the weather cooperated as I expected that my summer cabin in the Sierras would have been snowed in by now. (I just got back late last night). 73, Ted, the rookie 160M contester. PS, next year I intend to bring in an extra 45 gallons of diesel fuel, run the big diesel generator during the contest rather than the Honda generator and run high power up there rather than just 150W J -- K6XN