11/10/2009 | NJ1Q Worked CW Sweeps from our little place in Rhode Island. Despite a few "issues" here and there, I managed to work 183 stations on 80 through 15 meters, with 71 sections.

Unfortunately, I missed NE, ME, SNJ, ID, OR, MB, NL, NWT and SK. I heard them all (with the exception of NWT) but they didnt hear me.

My lovely bride Shirley helped me put up the antenna. Installed it early Saturday morning. It was kind of like Field Day! :-)

I originally planned on using my shortened h/b G5RV-style antenna (40-10 meters) along with a long-wire for 80 meters. The long wire didnt pan out at all, so I added about 16 feet of scrap wire to both sides of the antenna. With 41 feet of wire on each end, and fed with about 17 feet of 450 ohm ladder-line (with a h/b choke) I was able to get on 80 to 10 meters (using an LDG AT100Pro tuner) with no difficulties. The feedpoint was up about 27 feet.

Running just under 100 watts, I was pleasantly surprised when quite a number of stations came back to me on the first call. Obviously, I couldn't break the "Kilowatt Pileups" on some of the rarer sections. (But I knew that going into the event.) Hey, I managed to snag PAC on 40 meters after one or two calls. Must've done something right!

I never enter a contest with a notion of winning. I do it all for the fun of it!

-- NJ1Q