I went up into the woods and started lowering the wire antennas. I also untied the various radials on the elevated 160m vertical that were tied to trees.
March 7, 2025
Mark KW1X came over to help. It was a blustery day in the low 40s and the wind was howling. We decided to start on some easy projects close to the ground.
First was the removal of the two tower sections that were holding up the feed point of the elevated 160 vertical.
Then we moved on to removing a Cushcraft A-3WS that was side-mounted about 30′ up a tower.
That went quickly so we started looking at the stack of 4-element 10-meter beams at 30′ and 60′ on tower 2. Before we could remove them, we needed to remove the shunt feed for 160m. That was a 65′ piece of aluminum tubing. I tied the shunt arm off to a rope and was able to lower it down. It was windy but didn’t seem too bad.
On to the 10-meter beams. The first one was only 30′ up. It took no time at all (gravity is very helpful when removing antennas).
The wind seemed to slacken so we were emboldened to work on the one at 60′. When I cleared the tree line around 55′, I realized how much the wind had increased. There had to be gusts in the 40mph range. I was holding on afraid to unclip to reposition the belt. Then my glasses flew off and landed 100′ down range…
The antenna came off and was easily lowered down to the ground. We both decided that was enough for one day. Amazing how much we got done in just 3 hours.
March 8, 2025
I took apart all of the antennas we had lowered and prepared them for the move. A 20′ U-Haul truck has a 16′ bed. The goal was to have all the antenna pieces be shorter than that or could be positioned into the extra area over the passenger cab.
This was another 3-4 hours of working time.
March 9, 2025
Mark KW1X returned on a day that was not as cold and not as windy. The goal for today was to remove the side mount antennas on Tower 1 and take down the 80m dipole that was strung between the towers.
First up was the 5-ele Hygain 155CA at 33′.
That didn’t take long at all. Well, except for the rusted bolts that took forever to remove the nuts. I learned the value of stainless steel hardware multiple times this day. Especially for things that have been in the weather for nearly 30 years!
We removed the lower Hygain 205CA that was at 50′ without issue. You don’t realize how big a 20 meter mono-bander is until you have it in your hand trying to maneuver it around a guy wire.
We took a bit of a break to lower the 80 meter dipole. Of course, the rope caught on the top of the tower on one side so we rolled up what we could. Mark is a professional electrician and a master at rolling up cables!
Next was another Hygain 155CA at 66′. It was on a side mount, so it didn’t take long to loosen the bolts and lift it off. We managed to get past two sets of guy wires without bending it up.
We then removed the swinging gate rotatable side mount. One bold refused to loosen or break off, so Mark had to send the electric saw up to cut it off. The side mount was obtained from W8JGU more than 40 years ago and it is a great design and has worked well.
Last item for the day was to remove the 30 meter dipole at 80′. That was easy compared to the rest of the antennas!
Once again, an amazing amount of work in just 4 hours.
March 11
The weather felt like Spring. Temperatures were in the low 60s, with plenty of sun, and almost no wind. Of course, no tower climbing projects were planned for the day. But, it did give me a chance to take apart some antennas and start to remove the cable runs. This station has 8 separate coax cables/hardline plus another 10 control cables. Tower 1 is 275′ from the house and Tower 2 is 250′ away.
I had to take advantage of the nice weather. I climbed to the top of Tower 2 to free the role for the 80 meter dipole. While I was there, I removed all the catenary ropes that had been holding up the 80 meter 4 square.
I removed all the remote coax relays and the box containing the 160 shunt-feed capacitor.
All of the coaxes back to the shack were run on messenger cables to keep the critters from chewing them up. I started liberating cables and pulling them down the hill. Lots more to do to get everything pulled and coiled.
My first contest from this location was in ARRL DX Phone 1993. I had owned the house for 3 days and put a Hygain 18AVT all band vertical on the chain link fence. I went to Dayton in May later that year and returned to walk the property and decide where the antennas would go. Had two towers and a competitive station by CQ WW SSB in October. Have exceeded every contesting expectation I ever had in the 32 years since. It has been a good run. Nice to end on a weekend that had a little bit of everything.
Trying to win a contest is hard work. Enjoying one is fun. I used the cluster and decided to do whatever felt like fun all weekend. No pressure.
Started on 10m calling stations and then worked my way down the bands. 40m is always tough so just worked the big guys. Signals on 75m were fantastically loud. Felt like a sunspot low. Even 160 was quiet and produced some Europeans, including a short run in the 05z hour that produced many multipliers.
Things started to get quiet around 07z (2 am) so I decided on a sleep break. Back on at 10z (5 am) and 20m was just waking up. Always fun to hear the band come to life. Best was getting 14163 and was off to the races at 1025z. Made the jump to 15m at 1123z and the rate exploded! We are so lucky in New England to get first dibs on the bands.
I wasn’t sure about 10m, but there were lots of signals, so I threw out a CQ at 1214z. Boom. Another big hour, but not the rock-crushing signals there were on 15m. Rates were good, but I had time to listen on 20m. It was wide open to Asia. I chased spots on 20 and then chased more spots on 15m. Then I lost focus and fell into DXer mode. Could not get a good run going on 10 or 15 so just kept chasing spots.
Things slowed a bit so I decided to run to McDonalds for breakfast and take the recycling to the dump, then a quick stop at the grocery store. That was a 50-minute off time. But, the mental break was helpful.
Was able to generate some good runs on 10 and 15 over the next 3 hours. Went to 20m early around 1830z. This is always a good time get some 20m QSOs without all the QRM, but it probably wasn’t the rate that staying on 10m would have delivered.
The weather looked nice outside so took a break to get in a 4-mile walk. Nothing wakes up the mind like some exercise in 50 degree weather. Was worth the almost 2-hour break, but it enabled K1LZ to get way ahead of me.
Spent the rest of the day bouncing around the bands working whatever I could. The big difference between CW and SSB is that this would be prime time on 40m. But, it is impossible to get any rate out of 40m phone. Not much room and too many loud signals. Tried CQing above 7200 and listening below 7100. Had some luck, but not enough to stay at it.
Found conditions on 15m to be very good to Japan (the bands were clearly improving). I did get a small JA run, which is always a pleasant surprise. One disadvantage of having a 5 in your call instead of a 1 is the JAs don’t get as excited…
Chased mults until 0030z. Decided to do what I did on CW and catch some sleep. Took a 3-hour break and woke up to find things pretty quiet. The low bands were not good at all the second night (no doubt due to the increasing MUFs).
At 07z I shut it down again for another sleep break. I was just about to fall asleep when I heard something from the headphones (I had forgotten to turn down the volume). I got up and saw there were a couple of multipliers on the cluster so I had to chase those…
Back on at 10z. Worked a few mults on 40 and then established a run on 20m at 1015z. Almost a carbon copy of the first day. I love that first 30 minutes when there are lots of stations calling and no QRM. The jump to 15m was at 1115z. (Local sunrise is 1112z)
Lucked into a great frequency on 10m. Had one of those amazing 45-minute periods where there was no QRM and I could hear all the way to the noise floor. Then a very very loud RW1F fired up 2 Khz below me and the splatter made it hard to hear the weak guys. This was the first of many instances on Sunday where I would get a spot, and then have the frequency trashed by a loud and wide European. There really is no way to fight back when using a K3. Asymmetrical warfare by the wide guys.
I started scoreboard watching and that kept me grinding away for Sunday. Was trying to keep up with the QSO rate K1LZ was doing and also stay ahead of AA3B. Anything to keep the mind occupied and the motivation up.
At 20z I took a break to get in another 4-mile walk. It was 30 degrees colder on Sunday than it had been on Saturday! Came back on for the last 2-1/2 hours and called CQ into the splatter on 20m and chased spots.
At 23z I found a very loud YE9BJM on 10m. He was soooo loud but didn’t seem to work anything but stations in PA and NJ. I wasted 10 minutes with no result. As I worked my way up the band I noticed the JAs were very loud. Decided to call CQ around 28560 for the last 20 minutes and was rewarded with some responses from JA, HL, BY, and a YB! This is one place where self-spotting helped attract attention.
Self-spotting is of benefit. I didn’t do it a lot, but it was always a good way to announce the presence on a new run frequency. It probably helped me on 160 and 80. When I saw a spot of my call age off the band map I would put one out. Usually resulted in a small bump of rate.
At one point on Sunday, I was reduced to just clicking on spots to make some rate. I quickly realized the value of being in the spot window. It is very nice to just click, listen, and then call or move on. The rate wasn’t bad either.
Fun QSOs:
9N7AA called me on 15 the first day and 10 the second.
Sunday morning on 10m a loud station just gave their last 3 letters. I was surprised that it turned out to be a VU!
Worked UN4Q on 4 bands.
Cool having a small run on UA0 stations on 10m over Europe.
KH0/KC0W had big pileups on 15 and 10. He wasn’t that loud, but threw my call in just to see what would happen. He came right back! That’s always a morale booster.
Worked HH2AA on a tail end. He recorded it and put it on his YouTube channel.
Thanks to everyone around the world who chased W/VE stations all weekend. You make the contest fun!
This was the final big contest from this station. I am relocating to Ohio this summer. Now the work of taking everything down begins. Do I pull all the cables and go instant QRT or do it tactically to maintain some ability to get on the air during the process? It has been a great run and I will miss being loud from W1. But, nothing is more hopeful than building a new station so I have plenty to look forward to.
This was my final ARRL DX CW from this QTH. It has been a great 32-year run, and it is nice to end on a high note. With nothing to prove, I opted for the fun factor and decided to work assisted.
Got off to a good start. I made it to 160 about 0310z and found some loud European signals that were easy to work. About 10 minutes later, some electronic noise began. This has been occurring for several years. I suspect it is something related to a neighbor’s heating system. The electronic buzz/hash is S7 across 160. Doesn’t affect the other bands. That kind of broke my mental lock on the contest. I returned to the high bands and hoped it might go away later.
Plenty of good rates on 40 and 80. 40 was excellent in the hours after Europe sunrise. I finally decided to take a short sleep break when things began to slow down. Back on at 10z and 20m was already open.
Rates were fast and furious the next few hours. I had seen predictions that things might be disturbed on Saturday and improve on Sunday so I was not surprised to see 10m open slowly.
Signals on 10m were workable beaming south or east from the normal opening time, but didn’t feel runnable. And certainly not as good as 15m was doing. I decided to stay committed to 15m since the rate was so good. I did get two good hours on 10m starting around 15z.
First mental health and food break at 20z. I really needed that after the mental drain of high rate zero beat non-stop calling Europe pileups. Came back from that on to 40 meters. It was a bit early, but Eu signals were good, and being early meant getting a good frequency. Was able to stay on 40 until almost 00z.
At 00z I did something I had never done before. I stopped operating, grabbed a bite to eat, and then went to sleep for 3 hours. I woke up with a much better mental attitude and chased the sunrise across Europe.
Started calling CQ on 160m at 0520z. The electronic hash was off so I could hear well (except for the static crashes). Had a nice “run” of Europeans until 0615z. Even worked some 5W stations!
80 and 40 were very open to Europe, but not much rate. I think the activity was limited so we just ran out of stations to work. Noticed the multi-multi stations couldn’t get much over 2000 QSOs on any band so that is probably a good indication of the available population of stations to work.
About this time the snow changed over to rain and there was some rain static. It was especially noticeable on 40 and 20. Even though I was awake, I decided 90 more minutes of sleep wouldn’t hurt. Back on at 10z to find a wide open 20 meters. I was low on 20m QSOs so stayed on the band a bit longer while listening to 15 open. Made the jump at 1120z (my sunrise is 1154z!). Started CQing on 10m at 1213z and there was an instant pileup.
Propagation was strange. Some big signals from Russia. Weak from OH/SM. Loud from Italy. Mid to weak from Germany and Poland. Then it would reverse that.
During the morning I would check 20m. The band was incredibly open to Japan and Asia. I have never heard KH0W so loud! But, not much volume so mostly second radio work. Back to 15m around 1545z. That enabled me to do some S&P on 10m with the second radio.
I usually have the spot window set to only show multipliers. At this point, it just had a few and the game was to balance chasing pileups without losing the run frequency. Got lucky on a bunch of them. It helps to call a bit off frequency…
It got slow enough that I started trying to CQ on two bands. Almost every time I did it, I turned into a total lid within a few minutes. I finally started to figure it out, but I still don’t see how these guys do it for hours at a time.
It was nice to be called by HS0ZLN on 20m during the afternoon. Even more surprising to have him call me a few minutes later on 15m.
The rest of the contest was just a matter of waiting for Europeans to turn on their radio and call in. When I saw a spot for V85RH on 40m, I almost skipped it. But, things were slow so I checked it out. Wow! He was 20 over 9 on long path. Easy QSO!
The last hour was just chasing anything that moved. I had some decent rate on 80m. The band was good, just not much activity. But, it was a band with new people.
I watched the online scoreboard all weekend. I set it in the mode that combines all single ops (assisted and unassisted) into one list. I spent a lot of the weekend chasing AA3B and K1ZZ for multipliers and N2NT for QSOs. N2NT gained a lead during my sleep breaks and I could never close it down. I knew K1ZZ was doing his DXer thing so it provided a good indication of what was possible. With a lot of luck (like UN9L calling in on 80m) I was able to almost catch up.
I can’t imagine I would have put in this much operating time if not for the fun of chasing on the scoreboard.
ARRL DX SSB is the one more contest left from here. Not sure I can devote this much energy to SSB but have to do it.
Class: SO(A)AB HP Operating Time (hrs): 44 OpMode: SO2R
Summary: Band QSOs Zones Countries ------------------------------ 160: 131 15 53 80: 376 20 81 40: 1484 36 126 20: 1195 38 128 15: 1086 37 138 10: 1482 34 131 ------------------------------ Total: 5754 180 657 Total Score = 14,002,173
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments
My last CQ WW from this QTH may have been the best one! Non-stop action across all bands.
Spent the week doing a business trip to Salt Lake City. Flight home on Thu night was delayed due to weather. Arrived home and fell asleep at 3am on Friday morning. Slept 8 full hours and woke up feeling great at 11am. Never had that much sleep before a big contest.
Rates were amazing all weekend. I was in traditional SO2R mode – running on one band and tuning or chasing spots on the other.
First surprise of the weekend was when I went to 80m. The SWR on the four square was high. NE and SW were 1.8. NW and SE were 2.5. Europe was about the same on that or the dipole. Dark and raining so nothing I could do. People still answered me, but I did not feel loud. During a break on Sat afternoon, I ran up the hill expecting to find a broken rope or wire, but there was no visible issue.
I saw some European spots on 160m. Signals were good and I was having no trouble working stations so decided to try calling CQ. This resulted in a very good run of weak but easily copied Europeans. Even a few extra mults.
Even though there were stations to work, I wanted to grab a nap to be ready for the morning high band rates. Slept 60 minutes and had a bowl of cereal. Bands took another 45 minutes to wake up before the rates exploded. They never slowed down!
Ended the first 24 hours with an incredible 3-hour run on 40 meters.
The second day I meant to sleep early, but conditions were just too good. I kept finding more multipliers to work. Finally made myself stop at 0730z and sleep for 2 hours. It breaks My rule of always sleeping in 90-minute intervals, but it felt like the bands were improving so wanted to be on and ready.
Even though the rates were good, it took a while for the bands to sound normal. Signals on 15 and 10 were a bit weak and watery at the start.
I went back down to 20 early to try to improve the totals on that band. It worked out well as the European signals were loud and the band was not crowded. Later in the opening the JAs started calling and were very loud. Nice to have 4 HS stations, 2 BY, and 9M8 call in!
Moved to 40 to try and capture the luck of the first day. With over 1300 QSOs on the band, I think I had worked most of Europe already. Did snag VK6, E2X, and B0A.
The last hour was a mashup of tuning around calling people. I did get lucky and work 3B8M on 80. That was one of the few moments the 4 square SWR returned to normal. Called JAs on 15m and then it was done. The last QSO ticked the score over the 14 million mark.
The old SOA USA record was 12.7M set in 2014. It had a higher multiplier, but less QSOs.
This was a personal best for contacts. I had only had one other year over 5000. The difference maker seemed to be 40m. I felt like the king of the band for some reason. Having 10m open didn’t hurt either!
Amazing activity. Thanks to all the expeditioners who traveled to give us those rare multipliers. Much appreciated!
Thanks to everyone who posted to the scoreboard. Always a motivator for me. At one point K1ZZ was over 100 multipliers ahead of me. I made it my Sat night mission to try to catch up.
I need to get a solid-state amp. There were multipliers I would have chased but I didn’t want to have to retune!
Postscript: The 80m 4 square problem was a broken wire at the feed point of the NE vertical. Can’t believe the antenna worked at all. I was probably dumping most of my power into the dummy load!
Wow. These are the conditions that make us dream about sunspot maximums. No solar belches to mess things up. All bands were open. 10 meters was open well past dark.
Europeans on 40m over 2 hours after their sunrise. Beat the USA record from last year operating 8 fewer hours. Worked 51 stations on all 5 bands.
Activity was great as well. I never felt like there wasn’t someone new to work.
I was looking forward to the contest but didn’t think I had the mental fortitude to pull off a full-time effort. Over the previous three weekends, I had done all-Asia phone and WAE phone and then a week of travel. I had a great start, but at 0200z, I wasn’t feeling it, so I took a break to watch a movie. I came back on and then got hooked. I stayed up most of the night with just a short sleep break.
I started on 80m before sunrise and then moved up the bands. The activity was okay, but nothing great. Finally, I got to 15m—and wow—this is where everyone has been hanging out! Then 10 opened, so I had some great hours running on 2 bands.
Took a break to do some errands around town. Then worked some more guys. Then a break to take a walk (a great way to clear your head and make the contest fun again). Worked more guys. Stopped to cook dinner. Then worked more guys and finally took two short sleep breaks.
Sunday morning I went right to the high bands. More running on 2 bands. Not as crazy as Saturday, but the QSOs kept coming.
I was watching the scoreboard. My breaks saw K1LZ catch up and pass me on Saturday. Manu at K1LZ did a great job all weekend and destroyed the USA record I had set last year. Congrats to him!
I was low on multipliers on Sunday so tried to do more tuning around. Missed some easy ones. Such as New Hampshire on 80 and Connecticut on 10m. Only worked a few stations from Georgia. Only one station from NM and one from WV. Nothing from WY.
The most interesting DX was working YB stations on 15 and 10 meters at the same time in the late morning. It was the middle of the night for them.
Everything in the station worked great. Even with the windows open the shack was extra warm from all the RTTY action on 2 radios.
The operating proficiency of the RTTY ops continues to improve. Guys were sending their calls less often and the exchanges were very short. That helped make the high rates possible.
Thanks for all the QSOs. This is probably the last CQ WW RTTY for me from this location. I will be moving to Ohio next year.
We had a very nice summer weekend outside, but I chose to chase WRTC qualifying points. You can do that when your wife is out of town.
The contest started OK on 40m. But, when I started making QSOs on the second radio, I was getting reports about a rough note or not good tone. I listened on a remote SDR and could hear a bit of roughness on the signal. It was not there without the amplifier. I swapped in my backup amp (Alpha 76-CA) and there were no more complaints about the signal.
Good conditions on all bands except 10m where only the biggest guns could be worked on scatter.
I operated the first 12 hours without a break. Then things slowed down as the sun came up and only 15m was open.
Took short sleep breaks the second night. I knew there would be few new mults, but also not much activity on the low bands.
I think this contest is too long for the amount of activity. This was the most I have ever operated WAE CW. Much more fun when you only do the 20-24 good hours.
Excellent work by many Eu to copy the QTCs without repeats. Thanks for taking my QTCs!
I think I had more QTCs than QSOs because WriteLog was sending the dupe QSOs in the QTCs.
I wasn’t really excited to do this contest, but it is a major for WRTC Qualifying so I went after it. Did not have a plan or strategy. Spent most of the contest trying to figure out what to do.
It did remind me why I have been doing more assisted operations lately. It is hard to find multipliers on your own – especially when covering 6 bands on both modes! I felt like I was blind all weekend. There are many big scores reported on 3830 that I never heard or only heard once.
15m was the hot band all weekend. Signals from Europe were so loud at the start that I tried to get a run going on SSB. It did not last long and then I couldn’t get anything to happen. CW was always better for being able to make rate.
Enjoyed my first successful run with 2BSIQ on Sat afternoon. I had two hours on 15 and 20 CW. One or two answers on each band made it easier than usual. Big help to the score!
I hit the wall around 0700z. Was hungry, tired, and a bit worn out from doing so much SO2R. Took an 18 minute break to eat and recover. Then it was a push to the end.
I knew from the scoreboard there were lots of mults out there, but I just couldn’t find them. Some luck on Sunday morning helped build up the total.
Some sporadic E on 10m Saturday midday. Worked EF4HQ, GR2HQ and IP4M. It was better during the last hour of the contest, but not many people were there – not even the HQ stations.
Ended with a good run on 15m at the end. Went to SSB for the last 15 minutes and it paid off with a quick 60 QSOs.
The big hassle for the weekend was computer related. Something is causing the USB port that talks to the microHAM MK2R+ to lock up. When I lose that, I lose connection to the radios and computer sending. The lockup is so deep that it requires a complete power down of the computer and then a restart to restore operation. This takes about 3 minutes to do. The lockup always seems to happen when I am running (of course) so I try to log on paper and send by hand while guiding the computer through the restart. Can’t tell if it is RF related or component failure. No pattern to when it happens. But, always at an inconvenient time.
Congratulations to N6MJ at ND7K. He got his usual great start and I couldn’t catch up. AA4NC and N2NT also provided much competition and motivation on the online scoreboard.
I need a bigger air conditioner in the shack. At least in the winter contests, I can open the window. That was not going to work this weekend!
I don’t think I had ever heard of an EFHW (End-fed half wave) antenna 5 years ago. Now they seem to be in use everywhere. They are a compromise multi-band antenna, but they seem to work well enough that people use them.
In a follow-up email exchange, Ward Silver, N0AX, provided this information on the EFHW that was new to me.
The key to getting the most out of an EFHW is the impedance transformer and how you install the antenna.
Transformer design was all over the place until K1RF published a really good presentation on his effective design. (http://gnarc.org/wp-content/uploads/The-End-Fed-Half-Wave-Antenna.pdf) Summarizing, you have to use the right ferrite and have an end-fed impedance that is reasonably close to what the transformer can be expected to match. The ferrite has to be in its inductive (low-loss) region because it’s a flux-coupled transformer, not a transmission-line choke. Type 43 works well across the HF spectrum, becoming lossy above low VHF where it is used for EMI suppression. Using Type 31 makes the transformer an RF sponge at HF which is what it’s designed for. Turns ratios making the impedance ratio anywhere from 9:1 (3 to 1 turns) to 81:1 (9 to 1 turns) are used but the ratio most suitable to a wide variety of feed point impedances is 49:1 as I explain here: https://www.onallbands.com/feeding-end-fed-antennas/ Not having enough core cross-section area for the power level involved (1.5″ OD for QRP, 2.4″ OD for 100W, 2×2.4″ OD for up to 500 W CW or 1 kW SSB, 3×2.4″ OD for 1.5 kW) drives the core into a lossy region and it heats up.
Having some additional conductor beyond the feed point – I hesitate to call it a “counterpoise” because that’s not what it is acting as – helps stabilize the feed point impedance. This is usually the outer surface of the coax. Using a current choke at the feed point blocks this path and makes the feed point impedance erratic so it’s kind of a crapshoot how the SWR will look. If the feed point transformer is up in the air, such as in a horizontal configuration, the length of coax starts to become more significant and the antenna starts to look like an OCFD. Depending on how much coax surface there is, the resulting feed point impedance can also become erratic. The most reliably effective installation is to put the transformer three to six feet above the ground, run the wire straight up with a non-metallic (fiberglass) mast for at least 10 feet, then run the wire up to the highest point you can find so that it’s basically an inverted-L. Just lay the coax on the ground – it will be fine and non-fussy.
True, the EFHW only “requires” one support, but so does a dipole as an inverted-V or sloping dipole. The important thing is where the current maxima are located with respect to ground. This changes with frequency. On the lowest two bands, the current maxima are in the middle half of the antenna. On the higher bands, the current maxima are all across the antenna with the higher peaks nearer the transformer. The higher the maxima above ground, the more efficient radiator the antenna will be. On 15/12/10 meters, an 80-10 antenna starts to look like an end-fed long wire and radiates in the direction away from the feed point.
A center-fed doublet will work just as well but you have to have an antenna tuner for the even harmonic bands and use a low-loss open-wire line between the feed point and the tuner. Note that using 100 feet or more of RG-58 with the “wrong” transformer or a funky installation will make an antenna look just dandy to the transmitter due to feed line loss. If the coax-fed EFHW is presenting an SWR high enough to require a tuner at the transmitter, something is wrong either in the design or installation. You may be able to get a match with the tuner but feed line loss is likely to be high – you can hear people but not work them.
Most folks don’t really understand the antenna, install it any old way or really low, have unreasonable expectations, and are disappointed. Or the manufacturer doesn’t use the right ferrite or provides the wrong impedance ratio, or, or, or and the antenna just isn’t efficient. The result is unhappy customers who need education – sometimes “app notes” will really help.
Ward Silver, N0AX, email dated June 26, 2024
I found the information above informative and asked Ward if I could share it so others might benefit. Hope you find something that helps you get the most out of your EFHW antenna.
I have to thank WRTC qualifying for this contest effort. The weather outside was fantastic and I decided to spend the weekend inside chasing prefixes. Luckily my family understands the obsession.
The contest felt like it started slow. Couldn’t get an answer to a CQ for 5 minutes. Even so, it ended up as my best hour of the contest. I was ahead of 8P5A for a while. 🙂
It was a weekend of one radio CQing and the second radio always tuning. Never really had two bands open enough to try 2BSIQ. It was old-fashioned SO2R.
Kept expecting a solar storm of some kind. Only took one hour of off-time in the first 24 hours. Conditions were good, but not great. 10m never really opened the first day. Sat evening did have a good opening to JA on 15m. The JAs saved me. I was 100 prefixes behind ND7K at one point. The JA opening produced a lot of prefixes to help close the gap.
Second 24 hours was more interesting. Had to find times to burn 11 hours off. Conditions just kept getting better. 80m sounded like a winter evening with no QRN and very loud signals from Europe. 20m and 40m were open, but had worked most stations so rates were lower. Felt like activity was down. I.e., not many stations with small QSO numbers.
Slept 4 hours Sunday morning.
Was about to take another hour off Sunday morning when I tuned across 10m and heard S50C about 20 over 9. Called CQ and had a good hour.
Decided on a strategy of taking an hour or so off and then getting on for an hour. Gave me time to take a walk during one off time. Eat during another. And a shower. Ran out of time with 90 minutes of the contest still to go.
Even better opening to Japan on 15m on Sunday afternoon. Had both Eu and JA calling at the same time.
Highlight of the weekend was having the serious USA single ops on the Contestonlinescoreboard.com site. I was neck and neck with N6MJ at ND7K the whole weekend. Fantastic motivation. I could not match Dan for QSOs, but tried to hang in on multipliers. I realized I had a QSO point advantage when my score was higher even when he had 400 more QSOs and 30 more mults. Nice to be close enough to Europe to get them on the low bands. Also fun to watch the N2IC and K5GN battle for top W5.
The QSB was brutal. Stations would send 599 loud and then disappear by the last digit of the serial number. The polar flutter on JA stations would eliminate the dit from a letter. This happened many times. Thanks to SCP or would not have known I had the call wrong.
Serial numbers were a real frustration on Sunday. Whether it was having to ask for repeats or giving them. It seemed like the bigger the number got, the harder it was for people to copy. It became a joy to send the number and have it accepted on the first try.
Only one equipment failure. The SO2R controller started randomly switching split headphones back to combined. Then it would not switch back until the transmitting radio stopped. Very frustrating when about to copy a serial number. The problem started Sat evening and then mysteriously stopped on Sunday early. Then came back for awhile Sunday afternoon. Not sure how to duplicate this, but had never seen it happen before.
This was a personal best for me in WPX CW. Just a bit short of the USA record set by WA1Z a few years ago.
Thanks to everyone that got on for the contest and produced so many interesting prefixes! You don’t work calls like AO275JZ or DM5041MK every day.
