NAQP SSB Contest – mixed results
Yesterday was the August SSB edition of the North American QSO Party, a 12 hour event - a great time to test the TA-33M antenna that I put up a few weeks ago. For single ops, this is a 10 hour event out of 12, starting at 2pm local time. For once, I had just about everything ready. Overall, I’ll give this year’s effort a B- grade; moderate fun, but not enough to leave me super excited after the event.
Conditions are what they are at this time in the sunspot cycle, not spectacular. On 20, the new antenna performed nicely, giving me contacts from CA to ME to FL. Fifteen meters was a lot weaker, mostly I think, due to just fewer operators. As for 10 meters, nothing! I didn’t hear a single op anywhere on the band!
My biggest problem was 40 meters. Something tells me I need to make some repairs on that antenna – a B&W 160 thru 20 trap dipole. The match on 40 is a bit off and I could hear more stations than could hear me. It’s frustrating when you hear an S-9 signal and they can’t hear you at all. No pileup, just them calling and calling and not hearing my answer. There were a lot of loud signals that couldn’t hear me. Eighty was easier to make contacts on, but fewer ops. On top band, only two contacts, but that’s not too surprising.
All in all, I had an OK to good experience. I found a few station issues that need resolution – mostly noise from computer equipment – that need to be addressed; found that my newly installed beam is working pretty well (still need more op time to make sure), and maybe it’s time to put up some new wire antennas in the 90 ft. trees for the lower bands.
Oh yeah, how’d I do? 135 QSOs over about 9 1/2 hours and 68 multipliers for 9180 pts. Not bad, about middle of the pack for North Carolina ops in past years. I even heard Alaska and Hawaii on 20 meters. Too bad they didn’t hear me.
73,
W4FT
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