Check out the club participation. Big score from VE7ZO (Jim), a first time contester VE7PLI (Peter), and a father-daughter team VA7PK (Chris). And thank-you to Alan VE7UBA and Roger VE7AP for working with new hams on learning the “contesting ropes”. Well done, club!
Big thank-you’s to Alan VE7UBA and Roger VE7AP for introducing Peter VE7PLI and Ram VE7RPD to the engaging world of radio amateur contesting, in this instance the BC QSO Party. It was a success all the way around. Alan and Roger seen below.
Here are some comments from all four hams after the QSO party.
“Sitting with Alan VE7UBA in his shack for two hours, watching him while contesting, listening to his hints and explanations and being able to ask all the silly questions that were spinning in my head: this was a unique experience! Really the best way of learning. Thanks so much, Alan for having me in your shack and sharing your knowledge. And thanks Glenn for creating this opportunity.”
73 Peter VE7PLI
“It was really great experience for me to meet a ham veteran in person (in my case that was Roger Palmer) to learn the related aspects of contests and helpful software applications, tips and tricks etc.
I read contest documentation couple of times; however, I was not confident that I understood well enough.
Only when Roger practically walked me through and explained the details, I was able to easily follow to the extent, that I am now confident to builda HF antenna on my own and anticipating to use by tomorrow with my HF radio ( gifted by John Eyre VE7JEY).
I would like to sincerely thank you (Glenn) for arranging my meet/learn with Roger today.”
Hi Ram;
I enjoyed meeting with you on Saturday, and am glad that you found our session useful! After you left, I made a few more SSB and CW contacts, and I have posted the end result (53 contacts, 10,364 points) on the 3830 Score Summary web site:
https://3830scores.com/editionscores.php?c=1&arg=RvJ0nizV7YnY7U
I hope to hear you on the air (on HF) soon!
73
Roger
From Alan: “Peter – it was a pleasure to have you visit my shack. A positive experience all ’round. Good luck with your contesting… 73”
And congratulations to Peter!!!! His first contest!!!
Yes, it was excellent and …. see the results attached: my first contesting ever. Not a lot yet, due to the miserable conditions (and my lack of experience), but 100% more than ever!
73 Peter VE7PLI
Any mention of 160 Meters (often referred to as “Top Band”) usually conjures up images of extensive antennas strung up over large amounts of real estate. I always thought of 160 as a noisy, seldom-used ancient band left over from the early days of amateur radio, and never considered actually using it. I live in a condo, and antennas need to be stealthy and small; hardly compatible with Top Band activities!
I have a 14 foot vertical (made of nested aluminum tube) on the roof of our 5-story building, and have an Icom AH-730 automatic tuner at its base. The ground consists of the building’s sprinkler system standpipe, plus three 17 foot radials that are glued to the roof’s membrane. Cables run inside an air duct down to my shack in the suite below. I use an IC-7300 transceiver, which easily interfaces with the tuner, and I am able to get a decent VSWR on all bands from 6 to 160. The antenna works great for the higher bands, but I don’t get out that well on 80 meters because the radiation resistance of the electrically short vertical is quite small, and ground system losses dramatically reduce the efficiency. On 160, the overall antenna efficiency is probably not much more than 1 %, so my ERP is around 1 Watt – hardly what you need to operate in a contest!
Brian (VE7JKZ) is always encouraging me to enter into CW contests, and suggested that I enter the CQ 160 CW contest this weekend (Jan 24 and 25). I wasn’t expecting great things, but decided to give it a try. The contest started at 2 pm on Friday, but the band was absolutely devoid of signals at that time. Noise level (both natural and man-made) was high, but I managed to reduce it to a “dull roar” (S4-5) by using the 7300’s NR feature and narrowing the bandwidth to 150 Hz. Around 4:30 pm (just before the sun set) I started to hear signals. As darkness settled in, there were lots of signals from 1.80 to 1.85 MHz, and some of them were quite strong. I quickly worked the strongest ones, but then discovered that a lot of stations just couldn’t hear me! Even fairly strong stations would often not respond to my calls. I suspect that everyone has a local noise problem, and the criteria for being able to work a distant station is as much about their local noise level as it is the distance involved. I gamely kept working at it, and eventually made 25 contacts across most of continental US, and one each in Mexico and Hawaii. When it seemed like I had worked all the stations who could hear me, I shut down for the rest of the evening.
Saturday was nice and sunny, so I thought that I would try to improve the antenna situation. I managed to attach a 5 foot whip to the top of my vertical, which should have almost doubled the radiation resistance on 160. I thought that the improved antenna efficiency might increase my signal strength at a distant receiver by perhaps half an S-unit. Every bit helps! I got back on the air at around 5:30 pm on Saturday, and didn’t notice much of a difference. However, I did manage to log 13 more contacts before I packed it in for the day. Brian sent me an email to say that he had managed to log a JA station on 160, and I was impressed!
Sunday morning I woke up at 7:45 am and headed to the bathroom. The sun was just starting to appear to the East, so I assumed that 160 would be dead. I turned on the radio just to be sure, and things were pretty quiet except for a couple of West Coast stations that I had already worked. I noticed another good signal down at the bottom end of the band, and copied his call sign as JH4UYB. WOW! I gave him several calls, and eventually got him to respond with a question mark. The Japanese operator was very patient, and it took lots of repeats, but I eventually got him in the log! Apparently there were several Japanese stations being copied in BC for a one hour period around sunrise on Sunday morning, and I just happened to have the radio on then. The band soon completely faded away, and I shut down operations.
After just over 2.5 hours of operating on 160 this weekend, my final tally was only 40 QSO’s, but the experience gave me a new appreciation of what Top Band can offer. What a band!
I will have to come up with a better antenna for the next 160 contest! (Balloon? Kite?, Crane?)”
Cheers, and 73
Roger, VE7AP