AA8IA Amateur Radio

During the past week I swapped out my ~105′ ladderline-fed doublet for an Alpha Delta DX-LB Plus. I finally got the LB up in the air on Friday, with the help of some family. The LMR-400 I’m using to feed it is heavy, and the LB Plus itself is heavy, so it was causing the mast to bend pretty good without guy wires above 25′. As a stopgap measure I tied a piece a rope to the top section and secured it down in a way that would bring the mast back to vertical.

The LMR-400 was purchased from a place who had premade 50′ sections with N-connectors used for wireless backhauls. Not only do I not need LMR-400 on HF, but I also don’t need N-connectors on HF. This just causes me to have to use adapters to connect it to antennas and radios. The current LMR-400 likely has water breach. The N-connector on one end can easily be twisted, and there is intermittent connection of the ground. I ordered some RG-213/U with PL-259s which should be here this week.

I didn’t get an opportunity to even attempt to tune the 10/20/160 wires. The antenna doesn’t resonate inside the band edges for any ham band. Although, my LDG tuner will very quickly tune up on 10m through 20m. I was also able to tune up on 160 around 1820 khz. I can tune up on 40m as well, but there is RF floating around in the shack. I’m not sure if it is due to the close proximity of the antenna to the shack, the bad shield connection on the coax, or a combination thereof. So I can’t run 100w on 40m right now. I’ll worry about that once I have the new coax in place. I can tune on 80m, but only in the SSB portion. Not good — I prefer CW.

It rained most of the weekend. Fortunately there was no lightning, but there was no way for me to know whether there would be lightning. T-storms were forecast. So it was always in the back of my mind that I may have to quit any contest I was operating in this weekend. The noise on 40/80 was rough.

I attempted to operate in the WAE CW contest this weekend. I didn’t do as good as last year, but I didn’t put the time in either. I missed some opportunities because I couldn’t operate on 40m without the RF taking out my keying interface every time. So it was a 10-20m contest for me. Unfortunately, there was no Europe to be heard on 10m. On 15m I felt the conditions were mediocre at best. I did make some EU contacts, but there is no way in hell I would consider it to be good propogation on 15m this weekend. Others in Ohio who worked this contest wouldn’t agree, but they are also running high [and often directional] antennas and high power. 20m was good though, and that is where I made most of my contacts.

I worked a few MDC stations for that QSO party, but try as I may I just couldn’t find many on the air. I worked what I heard though. The MDC QSO party is like the WVQP — a handful of in-state stations who have all the fun working the casual people who run across them, but in my opinion there aren’t enough in-state MDC stations to make the contest fun for those out of state. Contrast that with the FLQP, GAQP, TNQP, OHQP, PAQP, CQP, and the 7-land QPS, where there is plenty of fun to be had for both in-state and out-of-state stations.

On the bright side, I was offered some help by my niece’s husband to relocate the current antenna support to another part of the yard farther away from the house. We’ll do that in the next month or two. We’ll dig a hole and cement a pipe into the ground and then mount the 50′ Max Gain Systems mast to it. I’ll put the DX-LB Plus on top, and perhaps I’ll stick a single-band wire below it. We’ll get some solid end supports in the ground as tall as I can get them… above 10 feet at least. Hopefully I can figure out how to do this in a way that allows me to use pulleys on it to raise and lower the wire(s) rather than having to retract the mast for maintenancce or during inclement weather. The 50′ mast has 8′ sections, while my current mast has 6′ sections. So, retracted it will be more difficult to work on things using the 50′ mast. And I definitely need to get that DX-LB Plus tuned for resonance inside the band edges of as many bands as I can.

North American QSO Party – CW
1800z August 6 to 0600z August 7, 2011
NAQP Rules and Info

I typically love the NAQP tests. Overall, they are typically among the fairest contests. Perhaps fairest is the wrong word. You aren’t supposed to run high power, so if we assume everyone adheres to that rule, then this contest is about as balanced as it can be aside from any geographical advantage somebody have. It’s a great contest for us “little pistol” stations since it’s a domestic contest. We can work DX, but the vast majority of our contacts will be NA stations.

Unfortunately, I am having an extremely difficult time getting motivated. The last time I played in a contest, there was something going on with the 80m doublet / dipole / whatever you wanna call it. Typically I can tune anywhere on any band 40m – 10m, and I can typically tune 80m CW. But for whatever reason I was having difficulty tuning up anywhere on 40m as well as on 80m, and I could tell the tuner was struggling to tune on some others. Now, there is only so much that can go wrong with a simple wire antenna. If the legs are intact and the ladderline is attached, what else is there? It wasn’t raining over the last contest weekend, so it wasn’t an issue with wet ladderline. The push-up mast was all the way up and everything was taught.

I really don’t even want to mess with it. I’d rather put the damned Alpha Delta DX-LB Plus up, but I have to put it together first…. and that takes motivation. Then, I’d have to use coax, and the only coax I have of sufficient length would have to be robbed from the DX-EE dipole. That coax is 100 feet long [overkill] and probably has water intrusion since it has been up a year, is hanging directly down towards the ground from its apex, and has never been sealed. It’s already on the DX-EE, so for good or bad it does work to some extent. But I’d hate to go through the trouble of putting the DX LB-Plus up and swapping the coax to it only to find that the coax is in bad shape. Plus, I don’t have an analyzer to properly tune for a resonant sweet spot on all of the primary bands it handles, and I certainly don’t have the ambition to do it the hard way.

To add insult to injury, we are supposed to see scattered thunderstorms throughout the weekend. My luck would have it that it would storm throughout the 12-hour period and I’d have to lower the mast, remove the feedlines, and unplug all of the equipment.

I am hopeful that I can be on and that the 80m wire will work in typical fashion, but I’m not going to count on it. The odds are against me.

Good luck to all who participate!

My Results:

New York QSO Party

Call: AA8IA
Operator(s): AA8IA
Station: AA8IA

Class: SOMixed LP
QTH: Toronto OH
Operating Time (hrs): 1.1

Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Dig Qs
—————————-
160:
80: 21 7
40: 1
20:
15:
10:
6:
2:
222:
432:
—————————-
Total: 22 7 9 Mults = 19 Total Score = 969

Club: Mad River Radio Club

Comments:

Spent too much time in working JARTS RTTY. By the time I got around to
thinking about NY, it was almost over [and I didn't realize it]. I had high
hopes of putting some time in on 80/40. I’m disappointed in myself — from
other submitted scores it looks like there was a lot of activity that I missed.
I need to make a note for next year to prioritize this one.

Thanks for the Qs!

Great contest. Lots of stations. Quite a few mobiles (two of them being the W3USA pair and K8RYU from Ohio and the MRRC). I worked a lot of SSB, and I CQd quite a few times — sometimes with some results. For me, only 80m/40m were available for operation being that I am right next door to PA. I did manage to work K3MJW (the bonus station) on 20m RTTY as well as on 160m SSB. My 80m doublet would not tune 75m, but I threw caution to the wind like I always do and made some 75m SSB contacts anyway. Of course the antenna wouldn’t tune on 160m either, so the 160m contact with K3MJW was a 5-watter with an SWR probably about 50:1 hah.

In general, the PA ops were great. They were plentiful, seemed to respect the bandplans more than ops in many QSO parties, and provided a lot of fun for us out-of-staters.

Was a beautiful weekend. The fam was over on Sunday, and I managed to spend time with everyone, do a little fall work, and still operate many hours on Sunday. I was feeling good. I had some problems with the new G4ZLP Digimaster PRO+ interface and N1MM today. Not sure what the cause was. It shouldn’t have been an RF-in-the-shack problem, but it may have been. Randomly, and thankfully not too often, I’d go to throw out a CQ via N1MM or respond with an exchange — and it would lock up with the radio keyed and I’d have to turn off the Digimaster PRO+. Of course, at that point N1MM would just shit itself, hanging on the CW IF exe. While troubleshooting I had noticed that the CW IF exe uses 50% CPU any time I’m transmitting CW, which doesn’t seem like something that should be happening on a P4 3.2 HT. I don’t know if it was because the keying interface was hooked up via a USB-to-Serial converter [the G4ZLP serial port] or if it was for some other reason. At any rate, I had to shutdown/reboot the machine about five times. Oh well, gave me a chance to relieve myself and refill the coffee mug.

I heard very few AZ stations during my time working the PaQP, which was surprising since the AzQP was happening this weekend as well. Of course, I bet I would have heard activity on 20m had I tuned there. There were too many contests this weekend, and I had to pick the ones i wanted to operate in. PaQP was priority, and I also made some Qs in the Makrothen RTTY contest. That was fun, but it was just to pass the time while waiting for the PaQP to start.

The PaQP was not a letdown by any means. I had an absolute blast. But, there were a few things that got me.

1. I had recently participated in the California QSO Party and was definitely spoiled by all of the 20m activity. Well, when you live one state away from the QSO Party you’re working, you’re only hope is ground wave for the most part. PA is pretty big, and I suppose at some point there could have been some propogation over to EPA, but I didn’t bother to look and don’t think it happens from EOH.

2. Quite a few of the PA ops didn’t identify very frequently, leaving everyone guessing. Aside from myself, I heard quite a few other ops who were waiting to contact a PA station and who had to ask for the call. You shouldn’t have to ask for a call. If you’re CQing, then ID.

3. Regardless of whether you submit your logs electronically or not, the rules state that you must send a Summary Sheet in via postal mail if you want your log to be counted. In the same breath the rules state that a $3.00 donation would be appreciated to offset the cost. Well, I don’t have a printer. [i know what you're probably thinking... but back off]

Hell, I had a lot of fun and would have been glad to donate $5 if they made an option available via Paypal. I think it’s baloney that you have to turn in a summary sheet via email, and the whole process smells really bad – requiring a summary sheet via postal mail is to get money from you. I’ll send in my log though, and I’ll send the $3. I’ll be interested to see if my logs make it into the list or if they disappear because I pissed and moaned about the perceived extortion :)

My Results

Pennsylvania QSO Party

Call: AA8IA
Operator(s): AA8IA
Station: AA8IA

Class: Single Op LP
QTH: Toronto OH
Operating Time (hrs): 12.5

Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs RTTY Qs PSK31 Qs
—————————————
160: 0 1 0 0
80: 53 40 0 0
40: 87 97 1 0
20: 0 0 1 0
15: 0 0 0 0
10: 0 0 0 0
6: 0 0 0 0
2: 0 0 0 0
—————————————
Total: 140 138 2 0 Mults = 59 Total Score = 26,098

I had a very busy Sunday, spending most of my time with family doing holiday things. I was able to get on the air for about 1.5 hours and operate the TnQP. I operated 40m only, on both CW and SSB. I mainly wanted to get on the air and give out a few Qs — the TN guys are very active in our OhQP and I wanted to reciprocate to the extent that I could.

I only made 41 Qs, but 21 of those were with 10 different mobiles. There were so many mobiles out and about. It was great. The downside was that there was always a pileup for the mobiles [I think everyone was chasing mobiles]. I didn’t seem to have a problem getting through to the mobiles, but I had much difficulty copying their exchange after I would throw out my call because 10 other stations would be repeating their callsigns trying to make the Q. Also, the TN mobiles often delayed giving their calls ovver the course of many Qs and so I’d have to wait around to get their call just to know who I was working.

Weather was great. 40m to TN was awesome. There were more Qs to be made, but I just didn’t have the time. When I first got on the air I checked 10/15/20. On 15 I heard KH6MB CQing and he was S9+, so I had to snag him. Heard a few other 15m DX stations. If I wasn’t interested in making a few Qs in the TnQP I would have stayed on 15m and worked a few other stations.

Anyway, nothing heard on 10/15/20m for the TnQP when I listened. I didn’t bother to check 80m because I was having so much fun on 40m.

I sure wish I could have operated the TnQP from beginning to end. I think I could have done pretty well. Thanks to all of the TnQP participants on the air, especially the bevy of mobiles that had ascended upon TN counties during the contest. It was really fun to chase them.

I can’t remember if I used my DX-EE or the 80m V for this one. I just tuned up whatever antenna was already chosen.

My Results


Tennessee QSO Party

Club: Mad River Radio Club


I’d have to say the CoQP was the most fun of all of the QSO parties I’ve worked thus far. Yep, even more fun than the OhQP for me. I worked hard to get the limited number of Qs that i got [72 total], but it was very relaxing to me. 20/40m were awesome. Weather was great. There were very low noise levels. I rarely had to call a second time to get a CO station. Their mobile ops are just great, able to handle fast/slow CW but predominantly sending at a much slower rate than ops in many other contests send. I think this is great because it is more appealing to casual participants, especially those who aren’t used to copying at such high speeds. Whether the CO ops knew it or not, I think they were presenting themselves in a way that made even the most green of participants want to give them a call. Thumbs up to them.

I had a blast working the mobiles. All of the CO mobiles were solid copy and had surprisingly strong sigs on both 20/40 for the duration of the contest. It was really a great way to spend a lazy Saturday before the holiday weekend kicked into gear.

Thanks to all of the CO participants… and especially the CO mobiles that made it so fun to chase them from county to county. W0UA/M and W0ETT/M were everpresent and easy to work. I also liked that the mobiles appeared to often QSY up or down the band after changing county, which made it more challenging since you couldn’t count on them being at one particular frequency through multiple counties.

Another thing I noticed is that my low 80m doublet was the best antenna for 20/40, beating out my DX-EE every time I checked. I was really glad I had the 80m V up.

I had never intended to operate 8 hours, but it was so fun that I got sucked in!

My Results


Colorado QSO Party

Club: Mad River Radio Club


The Colorado and Tennessee QSO parties are both this weekend. Fortunately, each is held at a completely different time — thus no contention.

Colorado QSO Party 1200Z, Sep 4 to 0400Z, Sep 5
Website: http://www.ppraa.org/coqp/

• 160-10m (no WARC bands) + VHF/UHF
• CW, SSB, Digital

Tennessee QSO Party 1800Z, Sep 5 to 0300Z, Sep 6
Website: http://www.tnqp.org/

• All amateur bands (except WARC bands)
• CW, SSB, Digital

I will try to make a few contacts. However, my brother and his wife are coming in from CMH this weekend so operating time will be limited. Great WX forecast this weekend here in Ohio…. hopefully I can take advantage for a few hours.

I’m not sure about activity in the CoQP, but the TnQP is a very popular contest. If you are going to work the TnQP you should anticipate a lot of activity.

(subliminal message – If you operated the OhQP this year, and especially if you were an Ohio station, please upload your logs to Logbook of the World (LOTW) and eQSL. Many people worked this contest in the hopes of getting a rare Ohio county confirmation. Do your part and upload your logs. It’s not difficult. If you want to know more about LOTW and eQSL, click on the link at the top of this page)

I put a tremendous amount of thought into OhQP 2010 operations from my home this year. That’s not to say that I put enough effort into optimizing my antenna system. I did not. However, I did manage to at least get the 80m dipole up in inverted-V fashion. It sure is a good thing, because I actually made more Qs on 80m than anywhere else.

80m was rocking, both on CW and SSB. Unfortunate for me is the fact that I didn’t take into account how important SSB operations would be if i wanted to reach as many stations as possible. My 80m Vee tuned fine on CW but would not tune on SSB. I could not resist the temptation to operate [at reduced power levels] on 80m SSB even though I couldn’t come anywhere close to tuning the SSB portion. I made quite a few 80m SSB Qs, all things considered. But, next year I will be sure to have an antenna that easily tunes on 80m CW and SSB. Even with my situation on 80m SSB, stations seemed to copy me without a problem.

40m was a bust band for me. Apparently I didn’t know when the right time was to get on 40m. I made some 40m CW QSOs, but I didn’t make any 40m SSB Qs. And I see that a lot of other Ohio stations made significantly higher numbers of Qs on 40m. So I was definitely doing something wrong there. There were RTTY contests going on, and 40m CW was a hard place to operate. I heard some CW mixed in with the RTTY, but in the cases where I did I tried to avoid making a contact. I wanted to be friendly to the RTTY contesting guys. Too bad there was a RTTY contest on the same day as the OhQP though. This did affect things.

20m was alright. On only operated CW on 20m. Not sure why I didn’t bother to seek out SSB contacts.

I made 1 QSO on 15m. 15m/10m were pretty much deader than a doornail.

1. There were a ton of Ohio stations on the air. Kenny [K2KW] did an excellent job with PR for this event.
2. Weather was beautiful in all of Ohio for the contest
3. QRN was at a minimum [at least for me] in Ohio

   I did a lot of CQing. It was effective. The problem is that I obviously didn’t know when to quit. Well, I knew there were many times when I should quit, but I didn’t. At those times I either should have checked other bands or SSB, or I should have QSY’d to a fresh frequency. Failing to adjust when rates were really low was a fatal flaw for me.

   Another fatal flaw of mine was that I didn’t choose the right band for the right time in order to maximize my Qs on all the workable bands.

   I also failed to look for the mobiles until the very end. This meant that I didn’t get a chance to work any of the mobiles/rovers when they were moving around East Ohio. The exception is K8RYU — Ralph did a fantastic job and I was able to work 3 counties on 80m with him. The mobile ops are all fantastic. They can copy fast/slow, without the need for repeats. In the end I was able to pick up a couple of county mults from the mobiles. If I had been on the ball, I’d probably have been able to snag K8MR and KC8YJJ on one or more bands/modes while they were in BELM / CARR / HARR / COLU / TUSC.

   Lastly, I failed to think ahead regarding the significant amount of SSB activity that would be occurring. This is probably because I usually run CW-only and because I usually have a piss poor setup for SSB. As it turns out though, low power aside, I actually have a good SSB setup now. I definitely need to get the 80m Vee to work on 80m SSB.

   In the end, I’m a bit disappointed with myself. Failure to pay attention caused me to not get any Qs for most of Eastern Ohio. I heard COSH and TUSC, but they weren’t CQing when I heard them and I never managed to catch up with them when they were CQing. Not even sure if they did CQ.

   I had a great time this year. I’m sure it is my best ever OhQP score. But even before the contest was over I new I made too many fatal mistakes and that had I given proper forethought to things I could have increased my score a bit and gotten the close counties. I also know there were some errors in my logs. I guarantine it won’t be a prisitine log, which is going to hurt my score.

   I saw the 3830 reports of quite a few out-of-state stations that did a phenomenal job, including working various OH mobiles 10-15 times.

   Thanks to all of the Ohio and out-of-state stations that worked me.

   My Results

   
Ohio QSO Party

   Call: AA8IA
   Operator(s): AA8IA
   Station: AA8IA

   Class: Single Op LP
   QTH: Toronto OH
   Operating Time (hrs): 12

   Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs
--------------------
80: 160 39
40: 47 0
20: 39 0
15: 1 0
10: 0 0
--------------------
Total: 247 39 CW Mults = 86 Ph Mults = 32 Total Score = 62,894


   What counties I did not work: ALLE , ASHT , BELM , BROW , CARR , COSH , DEFI , GREE , HARD , HARR , HIGH , HOCK , JACK , LAWR , MAHO , MARI , MIAM , MONR , MORG , MUSK , NOBL , PAUL , PERR , PIKE , PORT , STAR , TUSC , WYAN . 28 counties not worked! What the hell? Now, think about how many of those had mobile operations that I missed. I heard a station in BELM (probably mobile) but they were gone before I had a chance to throw out my call and find out their call. I heard [but did not work] COSH and MUSK.

   K9TM reports having not worked 8 counties. And out of those 8 counties he did not work, I worked 3 of them and heard 2 of them. That means that at the very least, there were operations in 85 of the 88 counties. So I missed at least 25 counties that I could have worked but didn’t.

   I worked 35 or 36 states. K9TM worked 47 states. So I wasn’t too far off. I didn’t do much on 40m or 20m. Had I put in more effort on CW/SSB on those bands, I probably could have picked up a few more states.

   I worked a few DX stations including IK2, G3, four DLs, HP9, OK2, and SP5.

   To sum it all up, I should have worked more 40m CW and I should have worked 40m SSB and 80m SSB. I should have made sure the Vee tuned on 80m SSB before the contest started and should have rectified that problem if it didn’t. I should have paid attention to the mobile routes / timelines so as to be able to catch some more mobiles in the “rare” counties.

At about T-2.5 hours til the end of the contest I got back on the air. 80m was all QRN. Very unpleasant. Of course, without an actual efficient antenna on 80m I just wasn’t being heard over the QRN. Every contact was a struggle. Between 11:30 PM and 12:05 AM I managed 4 Qs on 20m and 7 Qs on 80m. On 40m there were only two stations to be found that I hadn’t contacted previously.

At 12:06 AM I shut it down, with nearly two hours of contest left. I simply felt that I exhausted any possibility of useful contacts. I don’t know where the ops were – Was I just not hearing them? Or did everyone give up early?

My Results


North American QSO Party, SSB - August

Club: Mad River Radio Club


The Ohio QSO Party (OHQP) is the last Saturday in August — this year Aug 28th and 29th. That’s less than two weeks away! Take this remaining time to check your antennas and other gear, and be sure to participate! The OHQP is one of the premier QSO Parties, with a lot of activity. Hopefully all 88 counties will be active during this event.

If you’re looking for a confirmation for a specific Ohio county, this is the best time to get on the air.

Details: Ohio QSO Party Website – sponsored by the Mad River Radio Club

• 1600z, Aug 28 to 0400z, Aug 29 (12 PM Eastern, Saturday to Midnight)
• 80m – 10m (no WARC bands)
• SSB and CW

NOTE: http://www.ohqp.org is the official website for the Ohio QSO Party. There is no other valid website for the OHQP, regardless of what your favorite search engine tells you. The OHQP is not on Twitter, not on Facebook, and not on Myspace. The only place to find the Ohio QSO Party is at http://www.ohqp.org