Stew Perry Topband Challenge
Call: KV4FZ
Operator(s): KV4FZ
Station: KV4FZ
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: Virgin Islands
Operating Time (hrs): 21.5
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 478 Total Score = 4,498
Club:
Comments:
Very long a probably boring...(No pun intended)
Great openings to DX from EU but my stateside (NW)Beverage stopped working just
before the start of SP. I attributed this to the gale force winds that were
here most of Saturday. I was totally wrong. After the contest, I inspected the
DX-Eng reversible Beverage relay box and found a colony of thousands of ants had
made their home on the inside of the F connector were the supply voltage was
applied. The RX antenna was rendered useless in the NW direction. The droppings
of these insects was found to be not only very conductive but also corrosive. I
seems they all choose the input "F" connector as their outhouse. I
tried my best to work the states with a west Beverage and even with the EU
Beverage. This was not too bad for the West Coast were 12 and 13 pointers were
worked. The JA's were very readable and yielded some 28 pointers. Nice to work
JA7QVI along with JH1HDT, JH2FXK, JA3YBK, and others. Also got a call from RT0F
and Greg ZL3IX. These were all on the SW Beverage where a skewed path seemed to
exist. However, without the NW Beverage working, I could not prove that.
Plenty of Europeans contact all night plus Western Siberia for 20 pointers. What
I have never heard before is that European stations were worked as lates as
08:27 which was well into there daylight several hours after dawn. Most notable
was SM6M and GM3YTS who must have really hugged the grey line well to have
contacts with NA this late ion their morning.
Rig:
IC-7300
500-watt Ameritron solid state amp
90 foot top loaded tower (20 and 40 meters beams on top)
Reversible and single wire Beverages with the longest (East)being 900 feet.
Again I am very sorry I was not able to hear the states well. One lesson
learned is that even a tiny vent hole will not prevent 1000's of ants to be
attracted to the voltage carrying F connector of the Beverage relay box and
decide to make it there home. Unless I can really seal them well, I may go back
to double feedlines with 75-ohm terminations that exist in the passive (former
video) switcher. This would probably work with calculating the RG-6U lengths to
be multiple 1/2 wave and throwing in the proper VF.
I think the football game started and this is a good reason to quit typing.
73
Herb, KV4FZ
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