Today SM2XJP came over to assist me a bit while I took down the tram wire from the tower, making it possible for us to rotate the whole beauty. It went pretty smoothly even though it started to rain and got a little windy when I got up to 61m. I took some pictures showing different directions from the top and I think the takeoff looks good, pretty much similar to a flat QTH and to some directions even better.
This is two clips of my first real test of the top antenna in the future 20m stack. It’s recorded by Adam, KB8VOM in northern California and his reaction when he managed to get the QSO really made me smile, great to see! Thanks Adam and I hope to work you many more times.
The attempt
The QSO
Some update of the activity this weekend. Summary from 3830 follows and also some pictures taken from the weekend.
CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB Call: SJ2W Operator(s): SM2LIY SM2WMV Station: SJ2W Class: M/S HP QTH: Da Traesk Operating Time (hrs): 47 Summary: Band QSOs Zones Countries ------------------------------ 160: 508 13 64 80: 308 22 89 40: 160 23 89 20: 1633 38 139 15: 97 23 75 10: 35 8 32 ------------------------------ Total: 2741 127 488 Total Score = 3,219,525 Club: Worldwide Young Contesters
Comments:
We did not plan a serious effort but we ended up working the contest for 47 hours anyway. Plans were to do some outside work during the weekend to get ready for CQWW CW but snow arrived which made the plans change.
The contest was operated in a very limited way. No rotator yet on the tower, could only rotate the tower between JA and USA over the north but luckily the temporary 3el yagi for 20m was pointing in the opposite direction, so whenever we needed to work something south we used the 3el yagi instead of the top yagi. This was because the tram line was still in the tower and I don’t want to climb the tower in snowy/icy conditions.
Propagations were great, amazing to work 75 dxcc + 23 zones on 15m using the 40m vertical and 10m stack, since no antenna for the band is currently up. However the lowbands really suffered from the solar activity, we didn’t work any zone 4 or zone 5 on 160m for example. No VE worked on 40m and missing zone 4 as well. 20m was of course the money band. We used the 3el yagi @19m and the top antenna in the future 20m stack which is currently located at 55m (6el
yagi).
Most exciting thing in the contest? Having K7RL call in on 160m when the band was pretty much dead outside Europe, how? Aurora opening? Who knows…I first thought that maybe SG3P (SK3W) was kidding with me but the “Thanks for 160m” comment from K7RL on 20m the day after confirmed the QSO.
The multiplier radio consisted of an IC7400 with an old 2x572b amp putting out everything between 200-400W depending on its mood. But this old amp managed to work K7ZV LP on 80m during the afternoon 🙂
Now we will see how much more is done for CQWW CW, if we do M/S or some SB efforts.
Mike (SM2WMV) and Per (SM2LIY)
I went up to the new 20m beam today to straighten it out a bit (the boom support) and also added some extra clamps to the guy wires. It isn’t needed but somehow it calms me while climbing and then it’s worth it.
Will need to go up again to add a coax to the beam so I can use it a bit in CQWW SSB and also add the horisontal boom support. Here are some pictures taken by the gf
