Pages
Stay In Touch
More
© 2010 Arctic Diamonds - TF4M
CALL: TF4M
230 QSOs. 1214 QSO points
x 50 Multipliers
= 60700 Claimed score
My first time in the contest and a great learning experience.
Many fine signals on the band, but I had great trouble being heard even by the
strongest stations.
I heard many JA stations, but they never heard me calling.
K1TTT picked me up on the first call though, he must have a beverage pointed to
TF!
It is painfully clear that my reception far outperforms my tx signal.
I plan to build new TX antennas closer to the sea. My tx antenna is 500 meters
inland situated in a valley so it is shielded by mountains in several
directions.
I have a very quiet location and I can hear extremely weak signals with perfect
copy even though they are not workable.
Sunday had a massive storm and my open wire feeders kept shorting out so did
not get back on until late afternoon again.
TX: FT1000mp MkV + Emtron DX-3 at 1KW, YCCC Double L fed with 800 meters (2,400
feet) of open wire feeders.
RX: reversible Beverage to JA , ‘dipole’ with 100meter legs lying on the
ground.
I have been fairly active on 160M lately with the result of working JA and HL and it has become obvious that the receive capability of my station is far superior to my transmit capability.
My only receive antenna has been the reversible beverage to JA, on the reverse heading it hears well into SA but is very poor into EU and NA.
I have therefore not been able to work many stations who were calling me and yesterday I built another receive antenna for 160M.
It´s a wire dipole with 200 meter long legs strung out on the ground perpendicular to the JA beverage.
During snowstorms, when the noise on the TX antenna reaches 50 dB over S9 and the JA beverage has a noise level of S9 this new antenna is almost completely quiet.
It is really amazing to hear, signals are relatively strong and this will enable me to continue working even during snow storms.
I hope to build a new TX antenna closer to the sea along with permanent RX antennas for next season.
Last night had very good conditions and I was called by HL3IUA who answered my CQ and we made what is most likely the first ever TopBand QSO between HL and TF.
I also made 13 QSOs with JA stations in approximately one hour.
It appears that with my beverage antenna for JA I can hear the JAs better than they can hear me. I am also helped by the extremely low noise level at my location.
However, last night we had a snow storm with high winds and ice and my amplifier kept tripping due to high SWR at times. This cuts out the amplifier for two seconds and completely prevents damage to any components in the system, but is rather uncomfortable regardless.
Kaz JA8ISU sent me an audio recording of my QSO with JH8SRI .
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
