VE2TZT
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Re:CQ WW WPX CW 2012 - 2012/05/27 22:12
CALLSIGN USED VA2EW
CQWW WPX CW
Category single op non assisted monoband 80m HP.
op time : 15H40mn
QSO:431, PFX:279 SCORE : 546282
Congratulation Victor for this impressive score. I guess the special callsign must have given a hand.
On my side I did not want to redo for the sixth consecutive year the same contest with the same antennas even with a better propagation. I am in the process to improve by an average 3dB all my antenna farm, so as the 80m 4 SQ was just finished last week I was very excited to try it.
Then I decided to run in the monoband 80m category, the best way at the same time to learn how to use a new antenna and about this 80m band that was the band I have neglected the most until now.
For the first time since I am at this qth, I had the felling to exist on the 80m band. You know what I mean : My runs are not fading anymore within 10mn, nobody starts a run on my run frequency, some weak DX are answering to my run and give me sometimes a rewarding #001 and the running stations are answering fast when I call them in S&P even when they are weak.
I was a little anxious about the results because my land is very uneven and so for the radials and of course the vertical wires in the trees cannot be straight vertical at the exact position in the square.
As the project was mostly for TX, I knew that TX is far more tolerant than RX and I was not expecting much for RX but I had a great surprise when seeing that the RX has a fair directivity and a better Rear to Back (around 15dB ) than the beverages (around 10dB ).
Actually for RX, using the 4SQ and the beverages in diversity mode was a must, the two kind of antennas are very complementary.
So I am very satisfied and I find the result better than expected.
Currently I am only using an hybrid controller with 4 directions and I can fell the holes in the intermediate 45 degrees. It is why I am planning to built a controller for intermediate directions.
The contest by itself was not the best one for a 80m mono, it is a 40/20m contest and the use of the 80m band with short nights is very optional for most of the contesters so we got too few visitors at my taste and only 4 hundreds qso's were made. BTW it was funny to have some big stations with strong signals asking me for a repeat of my serial number considering it was unusually low...
The band was very noisy on all azimuths the first day because of the storms, the second day it was only noisy from West and the European signals were very good and easy to copy.
I must add that the elements were against me this WE : first day I started only at 21H30 local because of a lighting storm staying just above the qth, the second day a ''security'' problem in my neighbor’s just at the time of EU opening and today 1 hour before the end, a Hydro cutoff...
So if this participation will not be a record it had provided good learning with some pleasant moments.
Thanks to Victor, Louis, Claude, Serge(AWR) for the qso's
73
Gilles VA2EW
Post edited by: ve2tzt, at: 2012/05/27 22:13
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