There has NEVER been a contest for which I prepared more than this one. But I think I'm ready although there are many unknown parameters, not in the least the new 80/160m vertical. I think I have it tamed after countless hours in rain, snow and ice cold wind. I wonder how it'll behave. On 40m my wires seem to do well:

VK4HFO        7016.4 OQ5M        true 599 TU              1450 28-Nov-2008
N7CW          7016.3 OQ5M                                 1443 28-Nov-2008
BX4AQ         7016.4 OQ5M        CQ                       1438 28-Nov-2008

So let's hope for the best. Conditions are what they are but I'm afraid fatigue is my enemy...

Two weeks since my last update here but I haven't been sitting still. I tried to do all the non-ham stuff well before this weekend so I could focus on getting ready. Remember: major contests here are like fielddays: cranking up towers, pulling up low band wires, extra tri-band vertical for SO2R etc etc.

Two weeks ago I did a quick testing of my new 80/160m antenna. It's a makeover of my trusty 80m vertical antenna. Quite a disappointment. It didn't work well on 80 but the wire was too low because I didn't care to extend the tower. I found a match on 160m but I could never get the amp going. While tuning the amp on Top Band it did not find a match. All settings were going back and forth. Bummer!

Last week I found the culprit: the coax at the feed point got soaked and water poured right out. It's been over 8 months since I last used it (UBA DX CW). So I never discovered this. I made a new feed point assembly but it was raining which did not really invite me for more work. Other than that it was nice WX. My gut said 'above' was saving all wind up for CQ WW.

Last Friday I tried to cut off some length of the feedline and solder a new PL to it but the coax's braid sucked up a lot of H2O. So that one's SK. I'm out of plugs and loose ends so I sacrificed a longer run of RG-213 to make the jumper cable between the feedpoint and the box in the garden where all feedlines see the daylight. It was raining all afternoon so once again a very comfortable situation for such a job... But it got worse. For two years I used the LZ DX contest prior to WW CW as a dry run. That was the plan also this year but I needed to get my 160/80m project going. If not: no CQ WW, or at least not SOAB but a 20m SB effort. In stead of contesting I was doing antenna work. It was snowing all day so soon I was walking around with three layers of soaked clothes. And I needed to run back and forth between shack and garden because the antenna analyzer does not help in this particular case. I need to apply RF power to check the matching. But nothing helped. Adding wire, shorting wire, de-tuning elevated radials, dropping elevated radials on the ground, adding a length coax to the feed line. All this with snow falling from the sky and a razor sharp wind. NOTHING did work to get a match on 80m. The good thing is I heard 2 JA's on 160m - a first. I called a few times but by then I was so exhausted from the whole day in the blistering cold that I abandoned the ship and crashed on the couch. My last resort was to try to get the vertical wire away from the tower as I assumed coupling between the wire and the tower.

This AM I awoke and got an idea. I added all spare ferrite chokes I had and bingo! Now I could match on 160m and 80m. I heard a loud 5K0T on 160m but only called a few times. I called them on 80m and worked them pretty soon after my first call. So I guess the bl**dy thing works. I hope it'll work next weekend. Finally I had some time left to play in the LZ DX. I started on 15m but it wasn't a big success. With one hour to go I wondered if I could pull off a +100hr on 20m. Sure I could. I made over 160 CW QSO in 60 minutes, which is my personal best. I made a +160 hr in RDXC 2006 so I need to get the exact numbers to see if today's hour is my best but I think I topped it with a few contacts. Let's hope for a couple of hours like that next week!

Over the past 2 weeks I sold 4 items (actually sold 3 and 1 is spoken for) that had been lingering here for anything between 7 years and 5 weeks. No junk but very good stuff that I didn't use anymore - if ever used at all. So why buy something and sell 5 weeks later? Long story... That particular item concerned a Palstar 1500W tuner, brand new (literally) and sold at a bargain price. That blinded me. Now what raised my interest in the first place? Regular readers know that my much touted 80m vertical is a killer antenna yet I can't deploy it when the wind blows too hard. Those regulars also know that 'contest' equals 'wind' here so this is a problem for me. My plan was to make a new antenna, something 'verticallish' and put a matching network at the feedpoint. Make this matching network remote tunable from the shack et voilà: 80+160m vertical, not having to adjust wires when changing mode, independent of wind and tower height so universally deployable. Fact was that this tuner was cheaper than buying separate coils and capacitors. I saw myself mounting some motors on it and put it in a watertight box outside. So the idea of putting it to good use combined with the blinding bargain price made this fish bite the bait.

Of course soon after the purchase, when sobering up from the rush of having made the deal of the century, it dawned on me. I make many plans yet execute few. I envisioned the tuner packed in the box for a few years and then I'd finally decide to sell it. So I put it for sale online right away. And while I was at it, I decided to finally sell some other stuff packed in a box for a few years. As a result I find myself with some money for a brand new project. I have a plan. Better yet: I even plan to execute the plan. And I plan not to tell anyone about it just in case it doesn't get executed....

Have you ever noticed that a lot of hams are cat lovers (or pets in general)? I have two cats who love to bug me when I'm operating. Walking over the keyboard, bumping the paddles. I came across this silly cat story in the ARRL Newsletter about a 'ditter'. Apparently some station was sending a continuous string of dits on 40m from time to time. To make a long story short: the local hams gathered a small team to find the station sending the dits. In the end they found a station with no one at home but still transmitting.

Here's the link to the newsletter: http://www.arrl.org/arrlletter/08/1031/ Now the bottom line (quote from the ARRL Newsletter 10/31/2008):

With help from the neighbor, Swain contacted the ham at work and
explained the situation. The ham told the neighbor how to get in the
house and where they would find the transmitter. "We went in, found the
transmitter in operation and turned it off," Swain said. "I noticed the
ham had a large cat lounging near the transmitter and assumed the cat
could have leaned up against the keyer paddle and started the
transmitter. No other explanation could be possible without the owner
hearing the transmit relay clicking."

I wonder if the operator leaves his house with the rig on? Or does his cat know how to flip switches? Every time I leave my shack for a snack or a whiz I put the amp in 'stand by' and route the rig to the dummy load. When I leave the house the house all my stuff is switched off and the 230V supply is cut with a master switch on the outlet (à la this one). My cats are pretty clever in opening doors and flushing the toilet but I don't see them activating my station...

Today yet another certificate in the mail: "First Place Multioperator Belgium" for the 2007 edition of the ARRL 10m contest. I didn't even remember entering that one. I checked my log: twenty five contacts (25). In other words: showing up and submitting a log suffice to receive wallpaper when you're in ON. The 'multi op' thing just means I was 'assisted'. The ARRL counts DX cluster as a second operator. I learned that the hard way (link).

I like the 10m contest a lot. But now is not the time for 10m. Last week I was talking to Franky ON7RU. He feels that very slowly propagation is creeping out of the valley. Skeptical me replied that I did not have that impression. The next day I worked VU7SJ on 10m CW. I was amazed. Not just a weak signal popping out of the noise for a few minutes, but S7-S8 for quite a long time. Strike the iron while it's hot so I CQ'ed and worked some loud EU's and got called by Z29KM. Turning the beam to him made him S7 too. On 10m... And also 15m seemed to be better than it has been over the last year. Maybe it's just my imagination but could it really be that we're getting out of the minimum?

Right now my best DX band is still 30m. In a few weeks probably the W6/7-path on my sunset will be there again. It was there last winter so I hope it'll be there again. I worked a lot of JA last week just after my sunrise which is about their sunset. The problem with copying them was not the weakness but the echo. On both mornings the signals were quite loud but hard to copy. Is there a Q-code for echo? I still don't know, and I've been wondering for almost a year now (link). Anyone?