The prime motivator for this contest was to make DXCC on 80m. I’ve been stuck at 71 worked for some time at home. With the help of a few of the G9V gang I set up an 80 station at the usual G9V contest site.
The station was a K3, KPA500 running 400W into a full size quarter-wave vertical over 36 radials.
I tried out some BOGs using KD9SV transformers, they did prove to be directional and very low noise but they were too short to hear the JAs etc. Might try some form of loop next time. Having said that the only stations I didn’t work from the band-map were those I couldn’t hear any trace of, so the vertical was working pretty well. The field was somewhat of a bog which may have helped.
In the end the contest went rather better than I had hoped, though there were some bodge-tastic moments with the aerial when the tail from the so239 on the radial plate came off and I wasn’t able to solder it back on in situ. Out came the crimper… It was only after the start that I realised the aerial was still cut for the SSB end of the band, so during the horizontal rain during the following day I was back out crimping in an extension. For some reason the KAT500 tuner wasn’t finding a match in some parts of the band, never really worked out why.
Total operating time was ~30 hours, with very little sleep during the days and 3 hour gap on Saturday night when the rate died. The slots from around 2am onwards til dawn were far better than the dusk period.
On the plus side it looks like I beat the existing G record and I surpassed my DXCC goals and actually worked DXCC in the contest taking me to 108 overall. All round win in my book.
Call: M0PCB
Operator(s): M0PCB
Station: M0PCB
Class: SOSB(A)/80 HP
QTH: Birdlip, Glos.
Operating Time (hrs): 29
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
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80: 1763 27 101
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Total: 1763 27 101
Total Score = 360,192