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.
I have been using a Hygain TH7DXX as my south antenna ever since I built the station in 1993. It has served me well, but some years ago the SWR on 15m started being a problem. I could still work people, but having an SWR of more than 2:1 bothered me. No amount of changing things seemed to make it better.
In November 2023, Pete W1RM posted a message that he was looking to sell a C31xr that he had recently replaced with a JK tri-bander. I jumped on it.
Mark KW1X and I drove down to Pete’s place in CT to pick up the antenna on November 15. You can see Pete’s new antennas in the background.
Here is the complete kit as it arrived at my place.
It was now 2 weeks before CQ WW CW and I was determined to get this antenna in the air before then. The first step was to haul all the pieces up the hill and start assembling.
Some of the driven elements use a non-metallic spacer to isolate the element halves. As I put things together, I realized that I was missing one of them. I didn’t have much time so I tried to use a wooden dowel. It couldn’t handle the stress and quickly failed.
I had some extra loading coils left over from rebuilding the 40-2CD stack in 2022. Amazingly, one of the fiberglass rods that make up the coil was a perfect fit! It definitely had the required strength.
Antenna assembly went quickly once that disaster was averted.
I did not truly appreciate how big this antenna was until I started to assemble it. Long boom, lots of elements (14!), and a total weight of over 85 pounds. I started to worry if it was going to bump into the trees that surrounded the tower (it did).
Mark KW1X and Martin AA1ON came over to help with removing the TH7 and putting up the C31. Here is the TH7 before removal.
With the help of gravity, we had no problem bringing the TH7 down the tower. This 40′ tower only has one set of guy wires at the 30′ level so it was not difficult to corkscrew the beams around the guy wires. The C31xr was heavy and it took all of Mark and Martin’s effort to pull it up.
I was happy when the U-bolts were in place and the antenna was attached to the mast.
Here is the first look once I was back on the ground.
The next step was to check the SWR. Hmmm… not what I expected.
Discussion with W2GD and others who had a C31 indicated that having problems with 15m was not unusual. The first suggestion was to manipulate the loading coil.
I had put the antenna up with the coil the same as it was when at W1RM. The coil had the turns taped together.
Luckily, I could just reach the coil from the tower. So on Thanksgiving morning (Thu before CQWW) I removed the tape and spread out the coil.
Another suggestion to move the SWR minimum on 15m down the band was to make the shorting jumper on the 15m element a bit longer. This was much more difficult to reach and involved holding the jumper in place while screwing on a small nut. I was scared I was going to drop the nut and never find it! I did manage to get it on and tightened up. You can see the jumper to the left of the coil.
I was relieved and happy when I saw the results.
Mission accomplished! A bit of work with a rope saw cleared the tree branches that impacted the turning of the antenna and it was ready for action.
The antenna worked great during CQ WW CW. Having a 7-el 10m Yagi for a multiplier chasing antenna was nice even though it meant a lot more activity for the rotator.
One can’t really use NEC (even NEC4) to re-optimize this in a way that you could be sure that your new dimensions (keeping the spacing the same, which you can’t easily move) will yield an accurate real world result. The reason being is that NEC can’t handle elements this close together – mainly the 20m driven and 15m parasitically coupled driven element.
It’s not that it probably can’t be improved (mainly I mean the 15m SWR), but it can’t easily be done by working up a remodel via NEC like you normally would. On tribanders like this, you must keep the driven elements at least 18 inches or so from one another to keep from stressing the NEC model accuracy. That said, I believe there is an empty element bracket further back (towards the reflector) and if it was me, I’d move the 15m to that one, string a phasing line across the three driven elements and feed the 20 meter element instead. You could probably work up something a bit better that way, design it all for 50 ohm (get rid of the hairpin).
ARRL DX Contest, SSB - 2024
Call: K5ZD
Operator(s): K5ZD
Station: K5ZD
Class: SOUAB HP
QTH: MA
Operating Time (hrs): 40.8
OpMode: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 64 40
80: 231 70
40: 446 86
20: 1185 115
15: 1140 113
10: 1493 121
-------------------
Total: 4559 545 Total Score = 7,453,965 <<- Possible new W/VE record
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments
My third major contest effort in 4 weeks (WPX RTTY, ARRL CW, ARRL SSB). All fun with top-of-the-cycle conditions, but this one was probably the hardest.
K5ZD nearing the end of the ARRL DX SSB 2024 Contest
Decent start. Even got a run frequency in the mosh pit on 40 for a while. Low bands were not as good as CW, but good enough. 160 was way down from the weekend before.
I was watching the scoreboard and seeing N5DX and N3RD disappearing into the distance. N3RD was killing it for mults and also had the QSOs.
About 0600z I started to wonder if this was fun. 20m was open. But I could hear K5GN and K5TR running Europe that I could not hear. I decided that 4 hours of sleep might be more useful. It was not a great decision as the competition used that time to put another 300+ QSOs in their logs (mostly on 40). The sleep meant I was in chase mode the rest of the way, but with a better mental attitude.
I woke up to find 20m ready to go. Then quickly to 15 for an hour before making the jump to 10. I never really felt like I was in control Saturday morning.
Always seemed to searching for a good run frequency. Finally ended up above 28.8 and got to have some enjoyable rate.
15m stayed open so late that I didn’t get much time on 20 Sat afternoon.
Managed to wedge in on 40m and ran some more stations. Not fun, but the only way to get some of the multipliers. Then went back up to 10m to find it open to JA and South America. No luck with CQs, but plenty of spots to chase.
That got me to the 24-hour point. The score was good, but I was way behind N3RD. Every year I get to this point and wish these contests were only 24 hours… Took a food break and got back on the radio.
The 0100z hour had a great opening to JA. Even got some to answer my CQs! That was fun.
Decided I should take a short nap while the Europeans were sleeping. Had trouble falling asleep, but no problem waking up when the alarm went off. Jumped around the bands chasing spots and working on the 160 multiplier. Self-spotting definitely helped get attention on 80 and 160.
I had an incredible run on 20m during the 0700z hour. Imagine being on 20m with a clear frequency, no splatter at all, and just having one or two loud Europeans at a time answer CQs. It was a dream. Even so, I knew I need another 90 minute nap so walked away from a pretty good rate (although I think it was slowing down).
I saw N3RD had stopped increasing on the scoreboard around 06z. So all those 20m QSOs enabled me to catch up. 20m was still good when I woke up so I managed to pull at 200 QSO lead. Now it was time for me to be chased. N5DX was 800 QSOs ahead so I made it a goal to not let him get to 1000 ahead. Yeah, that is a weird goal, but whatever works.
The morning was OK. Bands weren’t bad (lots of Russians in the log), but not as great as they were the day before. There is a finite amount of DX activity so you run out of people to work. Even worse when everyone goes to 10m. I felt for the single band guys on 20 and 15. They had no one to work.
Tried to run as much as I could. 20m is best around 1700z while most people are still on 10 and 15m. It was just us an Europe. And some surprise callers from new multipliers.
After a short run on 40m during the 22z hour I was left with nothing to do but chase spots in the last hour.
Other thoughts…
The weather on Friday was great. I played my first golf of the season. The weather on Saturday was rain. All the line noise disappeared. Sunday was warm and windy so line noise was back. And I kept wishing I could go play golf.
Having so many bands open does ease some of the crowding. It was still very hard to find a frequency on 20 and 15, but possible.
Being south was an advantage. You could see it in the range of signal strengths from Europe. Northern Germany was weak and the HB/I stations were very loud.
Many package pileups were won by stations in the middle and south. None of this is a bad thing, just interesting to see how propagation varies year to year and when a disturbance happens. It is disappointing that ARRL permits self-spotting, but I did it and it does help at times.
Congrats to the UK contesters and their new 1000 watt limit. And those new 2×1 calls from Italy were interesting. You never knew who was hiding behind them.
The scoreboard is awesome. Had a blast chasing N3RD and N5DX, watching K1RX coming up, and the incredible score from N6MJ at ND7K. I needed the bands to break on Sunday morning in order to catch him.
Thanks to everyone around the world who chased W/VE stations all weekend. It certainly makes it more fun for us.
ARRL DX Contest, CW - 2024
Call: K5ZD
Operator(s): K5ZD
Station: K5ZD
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: MA
Operating Time (hrs): 45.5
OpMode: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 172 50
80: 442 68
40: 1240 80
20: 1526 94
15: 1369 102
10: 1269 90
-------------------
Total: 6018 484 Total Score = 8,736,684
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments
K5ZD near the end of ARRL DX CW 2024.
What a contest. What fantastic conditions. Especially over the pole. So many Russians!
We used to count the number of hours over 100 as a measure of contest success. This time I only had one hour under 100 in the first 24. Wow!
I turned on the scoreboard about 3 hours in feeling like I had a good start. Only to find N5DX and WA1Z already way ahead of me. A trend that would only continue. Even during 3 consecutive hours on Satruday morning with over 200 QSOs per hour N5DX just kept pulling away. WA1Z disappeared sometime on Saturday. That left me competing with N6MJ at ND7K. What? A W7 is keeping up with W1 in a DX contest?! Conditions must really be good.
I must have a hardware problem in my computer. It crashed around 17z the first morning. The MK2R+ software locks up hard and the only solution is to turn off the computer and restart. It happened again on Sunday at about the same time and I almost quit, but had too much invested in the contest at that point to give up.
160 was good the first night, but even better the second with no noise at all. I worked a number of 100W Europeans and even a few QRP.
The first night it seemed like 20 never closed. Loud Russians and then loud Europeans, with Japan mixed in the whole time. I missed a lot of 40m time because 20 was so good. The second night had the 20m opening, but not as good. And 40 was great at Eu sunrise so was able to get caught up.
The high bands were awesome on the first day. Just great the second. There was a period late morning on Sunday where I just couldn’t seem to get anything going. All while watching N5DX just keep pulling away.
Conditions to Asia the last 2 hours of the contest were great. I was even able to call CQ on 15 and get responses. A big help in my last-hour push to get to 6000 QSOs (far and away my personal best in a DX contest).
Mults were a challenge. It was hard to find time to S&P, and even when you did it was just stations sending a power and then dit dit. Callsigns seem to be optional in today’s DX cluster-powered contesting world. I have done assisted so much that I have forgotten the discipline of having to tune while running.
Lots of 6 band QSOs tell the story about how good all of the bands were.
Did not get out of the chair except for more than a few minutes in the first 26 hours. Then took a break to eat, then a short nap, then another short nap. Most I have operated as a single op in a number of years.
Unable to do 2BSIQ. Tried it for about 15 minutes on Sunday morning and just couldn’t Keep up. So this was almost all old school SO2R.
I did record the contest and there were some great rate and SO2R experiences. Unfortunately, the computer crash on Saturday did not continue the recording when I restarted. So missed a lot of the contest. Very sad since this one might be worth listening to during the next sunspot low.
Thanks to all the DX that spent their weekend working USA stations. Now to get ready for SSB in 2 weeks!
