ARRL 10 meter contest -

Walt - KZ1F

To all those entering the upcoming contest - Good luck! Be gentlemen, and remember, it's a hobby. Have fun.

Mark_WS7M

Well I'm planning to operate.  I will log but not really push for a big score.

Frankly, I'm wondering if I will be able to do anything at all.  My antenna loads up just fine on 10 but a few of the remotes I have access to all cannot hear me even with a Kw running.

I might not be able to make a single contact but I will try.

As one might expect the band is completely dead right now.  I got nothing going on.

Walt - KZ1F

Mark, go to ClubLog. If you aren't a member, join. They have propagation pages, look at 10 meters for their DXPeditions. There is other free propagation services that'll give you ideas on the projected openings to various parts of the world on 10m.

Burt Fisher

I will make it my goal to get  points to brag about. I will try for at least 5 minutes.

Mark_WS7M

I've managed 13 QSO so far.  Virtually all of them in CT!  Lousy conditions for me.  I can't hear hardly a thing.

Walt - KZ1F

Burt, I'd be the first person to 'like' whatever points you put on the board. Go for it dude!!

Mark_WS7M

Well good thing this contest came along...  I'm pretty sure propagation tonight is pretty lousy at least in my area.  I couldn't hear much.  I'll check tomorrow and see if things get better but me thinks my antenna and setup on 10m is pretty lousy... sigh...

Walt - KZ1F

What do you have for an antenna Mark?

Mark_WS7M

130 foot wire end fed at 30-40 feet up.

km9r.mike

This is the third year working this contest from a very nice local station. Compared to the previous two years, there is very low activity so far. Did not hear a single JA however, VK and HI were working them. Also, except for CA and AZ there has been no other stateside which was not the case the previous two years. Bottom line, it appears so far things are gonna be slow going.

Walt - KZ1F

And we're not even at solar min yet! Mark, I.am not familiar with the radiation pattern of those. Forty feet up should be plenty of height though, as 32' is one wavelength above ground. I'll have to find the cables for the 1500 or dust off the 530 this evening.

Mark_WS7M

The antenna with its matching transformer is self-resonant on 10m.  SWR over the whole band is 1.4 to 2.2.   So RF can get into the antenna reasonably well.

With my coax run at about that length and frequency I'm losing about 20w.  So if I put in 100, figuring in the SWR loss I think I should get 75 to the actual wire.

But what the wire is doing with that 75w, like you I am not exactly sure at this frequency.

The same antenna on 20m and 40m works extremely well.  Stations in south america and europe give me 7-9 most of the time.  Local stations (US) give me about the same.

I've done one 80m contact on it and it was a US station in CA and he said it was a "good signal".  

So it is very strange that the antenna performs so poorly on 10.  I still have a very long ways to go to reduce my local noise issues.

I currently have only two antenna.  One is an HF jpole for 80-10 that is about 34 feet long total and is mounted in a vertical fashion.  This antenna is also resonant on 10.  Here is what this antenna sees with with the RF gain all the way up:



Here is what the EF wire (130) sees.  This was an immediate switchover:



So the noisy spurs are still there but much less.  But as you can also see there really are no signals showing up.

Same exact antenna switched over to 40m, RF gain back down to the center point:



So I realize there is something very noisy going on, on 10.  I figured using the flex I could get around those spurs and find stations.  The problem is there really just aren't any!

I managed 15 contacts which is pretty amazing looking at that display.  I guess I was disappointed as I was hoping to see something more like during the CW SS where the band was packed with signals.  I guess I was wrong to expect the 10m contest would pull that kind of activity.

Walt - KZ1F

Just a scientific wild **** guess, have you tried the WBN? At least I, don't know what noise it does cure so I always have to do a Hail Mary. I show that problem on 80 and 160 with mine as they are on the sloper.

Burt Fisher

I worked two stations PX2b, ZY2B it was so thrilling I could not stop at one. Do I get extra points for working two, "2B's" in a row? I lied I gave one a 57 even though he was 59. Even though it was 60 degrees outside, why enjoy fresh air when I can sit on my lazy **** and exchange useless information? Why did they want my state?

Walt - KZ1F

as promised

Burt Fisher

I got so excited I even worked 2 CW stations, one 2 miles from me, W1NA. I better quit before I **** in my pants from the thrill. What is my score?

Mark_WS7M

I have not played much with WBN.  Anyway after going to bed last night thinking I had something seriously wrong with 10m this morning it came alive!  I mean signals all over and I worked almost all I could find even some I could barely hear.

So I guess my setup is working. I will still need to tackle the noise at some point but I have to say the flex allowed me to easily massage filters and avoid the spurs.  I worked some stations literally right on top of spurs.

Well I've managed over 200 QSOs and amassed 20,200 points.  Not much I know but not too back for a rookie so far.

I was looking for Burt... I guess he got so excited with his two contacts he is still running around the house trying not to **** his pants!

Walt - KZ1F

OR....Burt's now too embarrassed.. like Christmas morning. Perhaps Burt will now become "Contest Man" giving 5-9+10 reports to all, pulling all-nighters to catch every last contact, drinking Jolt cola all day and night. wearing diapers as going to the bathroom costs too much in 'rate'. Perhaps Dennis will pay him to come to SD to be chief contest man for his contest station there.

Anyway Mark, that's great. I am glad you got to enjoy the contest. I was thinking of breaking out the 530 to give you yet another CT station. But the 530 has no panadapter so therefore it doesn't even exist as a radio any longer. And, as it is not SDR, it wouldn't count anyway.

Mark_WS7M

Thanks Walt.  I'd rate this contest (so far) a 6 on the scale of 1 to 10.   But if I had managed to snag Burt I would award it a 10!!!

Walt - KZ1F

Mark, I do have a serious question, as opposed to all the others. Where did you get that really cool map of the world showing your contacts? I'd really enjoy that, but only if it showed MY contacts. I was thinking of making "an app for that" but if it already exists....Color me impressed.

Mark_WS7M

Walt,  All of that comes from HRDLOG.net.  If you upload contacts there and join they have a place where you can get scripts and things to show your log data including the map.

M

Walt - KZ1F

Well, I am a subscribing XML member and do have my log there. I'll look for the script. If you look me up you'll see a bio, proof of license and log.

Mark_WS7M

It's down near the right bottom.  Look for "Create the script"

Walt - KZ1F

My bad, I was thinking qrz, not hrd, as I saw it on qrz.

Rich, K0PIR

I just got my Flex 1500 last week and it is a lot of fun. Yesterday evening I got N1MM setup with it and it's working fine on CW. I didn't work the contest for long today, but I managed 25 CW contacts with 5 watts into a 2 element beam up about 30ft. Probably half of them DX contacts. I only had one glitch and I think it was just my mouse acting up. I changed a setting and it hasn't acted up since. Hope the band opens up some more tomorrow.

Walt - KZ1F

That is really good Rich. I can't claim tremendous luck with mine as it was simply feeding a vertical. It was pretty darn good with digital though, from Massachusetts I worked into the Pacific and Asia. phone, no further west than the Mississippi and, on a good day, EU. So congrats! Good luck tomorrow as well.