Posted: 8/7/2015 3:53:34 PM EDT
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This weekend, Saturday (8/8/15) 8AM Eastern until Midnight Sunday. Cootie keys worth bonus points.
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It's funny...you get bonus points for contacting a station who is using a cootie key, but you don't get bonus points for using a cootie key. That's like the QRP weekend, a couple of months ago, when I operated QRP with the K2.
I'll be using the new straight key this weekend. 
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40 carried the load yesterday. 15 was dead, and only made 4 contacts on 20. 80 had high QRN, but managed 8 QSOs between static crashes. Total count so far, 53 stations. Of those, 13 were using cootie keys, so quite a few bonus points.
The bottom 25 KHz of 20 is active this morning with the German DX contest, but nothing so far around 14.050. 40 is stable so far. |
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Thanks. I was running 50 Watts into my W2AU/W2VS trap dipole. The SWR gets pretty squirrely on 20 and 30, but it does get out.
What works for me it to find a clear spot and start calling. It's sometimes a little slow starting, but once the pack hears fresh meat, be prepared for a mini-pileup. After you've worked everybody, move across the frequency and pick up anybody you haven't worked. Then wait a half hour or so and repeat. How much antenna room do you have? I've used an off-center loaded dipole (not OCF) on 40 with good results in the past. They get pretty narrow-banded if the length is shortened by about a half, but they do work. The design calls for B&W inductors, which are insanely expensive. I wind my own with insulated solid copper wire and PVC tubing. If you do much work with single layer inductors, this slide rule is the bee's knees. It's very accurate, too. It's from the pre-computer era, but is much faster and easier than any spreadsheet apps I've seen when you're trying to determine the number of turns to put on a given form with an given diameter of wire. ETA: Did you notice the picture the /7 station from Wyoming posted? He was mountain-topping and really racked 'em in. Right nowI think he's in the top 5. |
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The maximum length for my attic antenna is about 35 feet, which is just about right for my 20m dipole. It works pretty well, and I can use it on 12-30 meters, with the tuner in the K3. It's not great on 30 meters, but it will cover the lower 48. I also have a dedicated 10m dipole and a 6m omni antenna up there, too.
My first attic antenna was a shortened 40m dipole (still have the coils, somewhere). But it was more of an exercise in frustration than anything else. I could hear people, but no one could hear me. So, I chopped it up, and turned it into my current dedicated 20m dipole. I do put up a 40m end-fed antenna out in the backyard on occasion, and it works quite well. But, I can only do that at night, under the cover of darkness, so as to avoid the wrath of the HOA police. And in the summertime, it doesn't get dark early enough for me to get much use out of it. A while back, I tried putting a folded dipole up in the attic in addition to my 20m antenna, but there wasn't enough room. Essentially, the two antennas were only about 6 inches apart, and were actually touching in a couple of places. I scrapped that idea pretty fast. Overall I do OK, but this summer, the propagation seems to be especially bad. The bands have just been dead around here. I did manage to get Bert in France, about 10 minutes before the WES ended though.
Edit: Oh BTW, my P3 is finally on it's way back from Elecraft. Should be here Wednesday. They had it for 4 weeks, so the total round trip is close to 6 weeks. They replaced the front screen. Unfortunately it's out of warranty, so the total repair cost (including shipping) is about $180. 
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