ARRL Inter. DX Contest, SSB

-
The international DX contest was this weekend March 5th and 6th.  The contest is designed to encourage W/VE stations to expand knowledge of DX propagation on the HF and MF bands, improve operating skills, and improve station capability by creating a competition in which DX stations may only contact W/VE stations. 

I started Saturday morning using my relatively new ZS6BKW antenna.   It lived up to its reputation as a modified G5RV.  Optimized or not, I struggled to make any contacts.  I could hear plenty of DX but most stations couldn't hear me.  I completed 1 QSO on 80, 1 on 40, and a few more on 20 before giving up for the day with 12 QSOs logged.  I fired up the amp but that didn't make much difference.   

On Sunday I switched over to my Wolf River Coil and manually tuned the antenna for each band using the wonderfully "Made in Ukraine" RigExpert AA55 Zoom antenna analyzer.   The WRC is easy to tune for 10, 15 and 20 meters using an antenna analyzer to find the resonant point for each band.    

I used the Mercury IIIS amplifier for the rest of the contest, transmitting about 500 watts based on the power rating for the WRC Silver Bullet Platinum 1000. The bands "came alive" with the WRC and I finished the day with 84 contacts including a Hawaii and Alaska.  

Contest Summary:  
Raw Score: 246 Qpts x 63 Mults = 15,498 Total Points.  
Total DX Miles (QSOs in USA not counted) = 217,261
 Average miles per DX QSO = 2,586
5 Continents, 36 Countries

QSO Propagation Map by Band:











Solar Cycle 25 Conditions 











73, Chris de WX7V




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Remote CW with RKI 1.05 and Sparkfun FT231X breakout board

-
Image
I've created a workable solution for sending CW via a "straight key" to my remote Flexradio 6600 at the lake using RemoteKeyerInterface (RKI) and a simple Serial/USB circuit.   RKI is only available for Windows. RKI enables you to use paddles or a straight key to send CW through a remote Flex‑6000 transceiver.  After several iterations I've settled on a design using the Sparkfun FT-231x breakout board and RKI v1.05 that was originally posted by Gary KT7AZ on the RKI  groups.io forum .   However, to send CW reliably via a straight key - there were two main problems I had to solve. First,  I had to resolve the network latency and buffer bloat in my shack's network by setting up a router with Smart Queue Management.   The Ubiquity EdgeRouter  was recommended by a friend of mine (Larry N1FG) and has been working great.  I'm using the 4 port Edgerouter X which was only $50 at microcenter (open box special).  No more audio stuttering or dropped packets, which kills
Read more

BENS BEST BENT WIRE

-
Image
Update 11/19/23 - Tribute for Bill Crane, SK 10/26/23: https://youtu.be/Znyqq9f93r0?si=bxPV0zVmGN7oWo_u ++ Update August 22, 2022.   I was able to find Bill Crane W9ZN on the air by looking for his spots on RBN .   Took me a while to see the pattern on when and where he's be on frequency, but not only did we make the QSO, we exchanged cards as well!  This is one of my favorite QSL cards that I've collected so far.  Thank You Bill!     73 Chris de WX7V ==================================== Last month I asked a members of the Straight Key Century Club  what was their favorite way to warm up before sending morse code.  I got a lot of input - from, "Just jump right in" to sending the Alphabet and the Numbers 0-9.   My favorite answer is to practice sending Bens Best Bent Wire, with the letters and numbers run together so that the code produced sounds similar to a march.  Apparently this was taught by the RAF,  merchant marines, and subsequently used by many commercial CW o
Read more

Wolf River Coil SB 1000 Platinum - 213" Whip Antenna Tuning Guide W0DHZ - Dale Henninger

-
Image
 Love my Wolf Rive Coil Antenna for POTA use but I haven’t marked it up (yet) to facilitate quick band changes while out in the field.   Here are some notes to use as a starting point based on the work by W0DHZ Dale Henninger: 102″ Telescoping Whip Band Whip Length Coil Position 6m Only 1st section of whip extended No Clicks – Top of Coil 10m 3 sections out + 6″ of 4th section No Clicks – Top of Coil 40m All sections out 3 Fingers Down 213″ Telescoping Whip Band Whip Length Coil Position 10m 8 sections out + 1″ of 9th section No Clicks – Top of Coil 20m 9 sections out + 13″ of 10th section No Clicks – Top of Coil 40m All sections extended 16 clicks down Reminder to subtract the length of the Wolf River Coils SB-1000 coil from the 1/4 Wave lengths above. http://www.w0dhz.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/WolfRiver-SB1000-213inWhip-Tuning-Spreadsheet.pdf
Read more