WPX CW contest? [Archive] - DXQSL Ham Radio Forums

A71BX

06-06-2009, 09:00 AM

http://www.a71bx.com/control/gallery/pics/1244276599_wpxcw092.jpg

http://www.a71bx.com/control/gallery/pics/1244276640_wpxcw091.jpg

Antennas
OB12-4 - 12 elements from Optibeam
OB9-5 - 9 elements from Optibeam
Sloper for 80m
Vertical for 160m

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Radios
Yaesu FT-2000
Yaesu FT-2000

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Call: A73A
Operator(s): A71BX and K5GN
Station: A71BX
Class: M/S HP
QTH: Qatar
Operating Time (hrs): 48:00
Summary

http://www.dxqsl.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=400&stc=1&d=1244278739

Comments By Dave - K5GN

Last year the QARS contesters went to the beach for WPX CW to do a feasibility test of setting up tents and verticals by the salt water of the Arabian Gulf. We learned a lot of technical things and that it was certainly possible, but the key thing we learned was that it was too hot for such an adventure without an air conditioned space in which to cool off. We decided that this year we would not brave the beach but would set up at the home QTH of Ali, A71BX. Last year it was windy and 40C. This year the week before WPX CW saw high temperatures of 50-51C, a heat wave for this desert location. So we were very happy to be in cool comfort at Ali's QTH

Last year Ali renovated his antenna system before CQ WW DX SSB

half-wave sloper for 80m from 25m
OB12-4 at 26m
OB9-5 at 20m on second tower

He now also has a 160 Cushcraft vertical on the roof, but this band was not used in WPX CW

This year Ali upgraded to FT-2000 rigs and added a new ACOM amplifier which is his first auto-tune amp. His Emtron amplifier is still doing a great job. Both were operated at 1500W and worked superbly on all bands

He is moving toward an SO2R setup, but the station was set up for multi-single, CQ-style, with two complete stations sharing the antennas via a WX0B SiXPak switch. FilterMax filters and home-brew stub filters kept the interstation RFI low. Band changes are not yet automated except for radio-computer. Win-Test was used again with great success

Ali's internet service is interrupted frequently by RFI. Even 100W on 40m seems to nail it. We haven't yet figured this out. It seems more work is needed to solve it. This meant that packet spots were rarely available, as the connection to servers was so often lost

Without the packet cluster, we chose to add a Skimmer. Unfortunately, connector adapters are hard to find here in Qatar, so the Skimmer was connected to only one radio. Skimmer finds a lot of bogus callsigns. Eventually you figure out how to recognize the callsigns with short first dits - Skimmer misses a lot of first dits in the noise

Most of the final setup was completed Friday afternoon and evening

The operators were to be A71BX (Ali), A71EM (Juma), A71AN (Rashed), and K5GN (Dave). However, Juma was unable to be in country, and Rashed was similarly detained, so it ended up being just BX and GN. The work week is Sunday through Thursday here, so we had both requested leave of absence for Sunday. All was set but BX's manager called in Saturday afternoon to say he was needed at work on Sunday! This meant that we both would end up operating as though we were doing single-operator efforts

As the contest started, Ali realized that the OB12-4 was stuck north. We never figured out what was wrong during the contest, but will go up the tower the following weekend to sort it out. During the weekend a big Shamal wind came in at gusts up to 65km/hr. The OB9-5 came loose on the mast and was variably pointing somewhere between northeast and north west for most of the second day

COnditions were quiet on 40 and there were signals all night on 20. 15 opened up during the day fairly solidly to Europe, but 10 was only spotty -- mainly the big guns with high antennas were coming through

Some people say that it seems silly in WPX to worry with a mult station. While there is merit to this argument -- the best way to increase mults in WPX is to increase rate -- it is clear that, especially early on, the multiplier station can be quite busy adding QSOs to the bottom line. Later on, there are still more mults to be found on the off bands while running on the best and for rate

We started with one station running on 40 and the mult station pouncing on 80. Lots of big guns to work on80 several frequency battles and a very crowded 40

Sunrise here was at 0145z, but 40 remained productive enough to keep us from 20m until almost 0400z, and we worked mults there until 0455. 20 was the workhorse during the day

With a real low JA participation and being unable to turn the 40 m yagi to the east , we were slow to return to 40 m in the evening. But it was a very good band at night, all night long. 20 was open somewhere all night to provide some mults and a break from 40 when a run frequency was lost. 80 was tough, as usual from here, with only one good run. Most attempts at running end up wasting time

Sunday was better on 15 and provided a few short runs on 10. However, overall rates were lower, as usual, and we were both pretty tired. We didn't break 4000 QSOs nor 1000 mults as we had hoped

The great thing, though, was a significant improvement over last year, with our best ever score

CU on the air again in the rest of the summertime contests

Ali and Dave 73