11/12/2009 | W8EDU The 2008 ARRL November Sweepstakes CW was a fine contest all around this year for the multiop at W8EDU. The bands cooperated, there were no show-stopping equipment failures, all of the operators were able to devote the entire weekend to the contest, and even the wx was pleasant.

W8EDU is the club station of the Case Amateur Radio Club at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. W8EDU has a long and rich history of contest achievements, winning the Great Lakes Division Multiop Plaque in the 2007 contest.

The bands generally sounded great this year. The mid latitude K index was zero for most of Saturday. You could hear a pin drop on the bands at the start of the contest. Signals were strong on 40 meters, the SS band in the Midwest. By 4 PM local time on Sunday, we could tell that the bands were getting noisy and the K of 3 reported at 2100Z showed the reason. The end of the contest was very quiet again, thanks to the K dropping back to 1 for the last three hours. While the sun was kind to us with the charged particles, it was not generous with x-ray photons. 10 m never opened and we had no traction on 15 m.

The only major equipment failure was a Henry 2KD-5 amplifier. It worked for about the first half of the contest, then a power supply capacitor failed. The HV DC read about 2/3 of the expected value and we had reports of loud hum on our signal. I looked inside the amp for obvious damage and made a few measurements, but could not see anything immediately fixable. I tossed the 2KD-5 aside and put an old Clipperton-L on line. The Clipperton-L absolutely saved us! Other than the 2KD-5, everything at the station was rock solid.

Thanks to K8DTS, KI8JV and everyone else at in the Case Amateur Radio Club for keeping the station in top operating condition. They get the credit for keeping the legend of W8EDU on the air and loud. -- W8WTS