ARRL DX 2016

[W3WN]

Only got to put in one day UTC (Saturday evening through late Sunday afternoon) in the SSB portion of the DX contest this last weekend. Spent time with the family Friday night (I know, an anathema to the 'serious' contesters, but most of them don't have families... the correlation is obvious), had to work all morning & afternoon on Saturday.

Conditions were not the best. And having to return Little Miss Field Day to school at the end of Spring Break on Sunday evening didn't help, either.

So, a part time effort, 2 of my 3 ops pulled no-shows (although in fairness, one of them spent Saturday at work with me as well, so he may have just been sick of looking at my face), barefoot into verticals. (And no 160; the 43 foot vertical actually worked very well on 75, so I just have to figure out if it's a loading problem or a radial problem, or both. And that given that most base-fed verticals always need more radials)

232 QSOs, over 101,000 points.

I need to figure out some way to rig up a couple of directional antennas. I may just look into a Moxon or two and put them on the roof.

[kb2vxa]

Where there's a will there's an heir, or a second vertical. If you have a place for it, 75 is good into Europe, the UK in particular with the low angle provided by a vertical and an electronically rotatable phased array has many advantages. 40M is another good DX band, whichever you choose the second vertical would be cut to length, placed where it can be phased against the other and coaxial delay lines cut accordingly. Credit where credit is due, Phil K2PG used a 2el rotatable vertical phased array on 40M way back when he lived in Iselin, NJ. Then I take credit using only 120W PEP into his grounded vertical folded unipole on 75M with honest 5/9+ reports both ways into the UK when the dipole guys with kilowatts blazing pulled their hair out. It's all in the low vertical radiation angle you'll never get with a dipole unless it's supported by a skyhook on one end and cloud 9 on the other. Eh, you already knew that, you're not a new plug n' play ham buying a dipole in a plastic bag.

[WX7P]

Didn't do as well as you, Ron, but I think I only put in about 3 hours total.

I had a total of 162 Q's, didn't bother to calculate the score.

This is the first contest from home (anywhere) where I made significant contacts on 75m. In the past, either my antenna has been shitty or the condx were incredibly noisy.
I bagged 30 new countries on 75 alone, well, they are all 'new' because of my new location.

The limited time I spent on the air was really fun.

The Icom 756 Pro II was a joy to operate. I just got it about two months ago and aside from checking into nets and talking to N6LDP in CA, this is the first time I've really used it. Still need to RTFM. Somehow, I set the timer which shut the radio off right in the middle of trying to bag BA5CW on 20m. Lame.

[W3WN]

162 Q's in 3 hours? You were really cooking. Good for you!

I hear conditions were much better on Saturday than Sunday. So it goes; there's always next year.

I do need to get semi-serious about some antennas. I keep coming back to the idea of a Moxon on 10 or 15, I think I could get away with one of those, aesthetically... Whatever I do has to pass muster with the Boss...