Went QRT after the ARRL CW DX Test…

I have been QRT since putting in a sin­gle-band effort in the ARRL DX CW Con­test two week-ends ago. Had house guest (cute young lass, friend of ours, vis­it­ing from SF…not gonna com­plain), so I dis­man­tled my sta­tion to tran­form it into a more com­fort­able guest room. Just got my auto­tuner sent back from LDG repair so I get to put it back in line, and stick the Drake MN-2000 back with the TR‑4/​RV‑4 down­stairs in the basement.

I decid­ed I would par­tic­i­pate sin­gle band in the DX con­test – 80M – in order to sta­t­is­fy a curios­i­ty. I DO NOT have a very effec­tive sig­nal on 80M, but I have a pret­ty good loca­tion. I have 100W to a fair­ly weak receiv­er (FT-857D) to a low G5RV…33 feet into a Sycamore tree, 15 feet of one end bent ver­ti­cal­ly from about 25 foot and the oth­er end gen­tly slop­ing to 15′. 105 foot hor­i­zon­tal 12ga wire stripped from Romex…green on one side, white on the oth­er. Radio Shack twin-lead that breaks if you look at it wrong. Ancient coax buried in the grass, and ques­tion­able tap­ing job on a ques­tion­ably sol­dered PL239. Don’t make an anten­na like I make an anten­na, son.

Worked 98 sta­tions, in 52 coun­tries. Oper­at­ed a total of 8 hours between the two nights, and even got K5D on 80M CW in between. High­lights for me was to work New Zealand at their sunset.

Africa (CT3, D4, EA8)

Europe (9A, CT, DL, EA, F, G, GD, GM, DW, HA, HB, I, OK, OM, ON, PA, S5, SP, UA, UA2, UR, YO, YU)

North Amer­i­ca (6Y, C6, CM, FM, J3, J7, J8, KL, KP2, KP4, V2, V3, V4, VP5, VP9, XE, YN, YS, ZF)

Ocea­nia (KH6, ZL)

South Amer­i­ca (HC, OA, P4, PJ2, PY)

Sad­ly, no Asia…I was prob­a­bly asleep dur­ing any open­ings to JA. This was fun, pret­ty low expec­ta­tion, fair­ly high reward. I was­n’t in it to win it, but I was in it to work every­thing I could hear. And I did too, except for one E7 and HA. I am pret­ty sure the sta­tions I con­tact­ed in EU were very well equipped and were able to com­pen­sate for my lack of juice. That said, 100W and a low wire with CW and you will get out, I just proven to myself. Hope­ful­ly by next win­ter I will have a decent ver­ti­cal anten­na and some receive loops…I bet I dou­ble my QSO numbers.