Monthly Archives: May 2013

CQ WPX, work and fun

The CQ WPX CW contest was a disaster propagation’s wise. The inband system worked fine except that we had IMD issues with the preamp on the vertical. Marius, LB3HC thought we should put an attenuator before it which reduced the IMD issues but made the weak signals harder to copy. The solution for this will be that now when we move the vertical to a new QTH we will put out hardline so we don’t need the preamp, or at least not as high gain preamp. We got 220m of 1 1/4″ from SM2RIX earlier and I will put together the cables I got from SM2OAN to a length of ~450m which should reach the new location. The concept works great and hopefully it can be extended even more in the future.

Otherwise some stuff got done during the week, not as much as I had hoped for though but it took some time preparing for the contest. The base bearing for the military tower got mounted by me, SM2XLL and SM2XJP. I got 8 tonnes of gravel delivered and pretty much finished up another side of the house so now it’s only one side left to be done. The concrete in the basement seem to be hardening well so it will be a lot nicer to do stuff inside that room in the future and hoepfully the basement will stay cleaner as well.

SM2UVU is making the bottom plate which connects the K-600 section to the base bearing this week, so hopefully with this dry weather the ground will dry out fast so I can make the concrete base for the tower.

My dad, SM3LIC and SM3UZS did visit during the week as well. It was A LOT of fun and they also brought me some stuff that will be useful in my various projects. My dad also brought a BBQ which I had asked him buy since the old one broke, this one is a bit bigger and more well made. Hopefully we will have one more operator in SM3UZS in the future. That together with that SM2UVU likes to join us is great, now we might not have an operator shortage anymore!

CQ WPX CW 2013 score

                    CQWW WPX Contest, CW

Call: SJ2W
Operator(s): LB3HC SE2T SM2LIY SM2WMV
Station: SJ2W

Class: M/S HP
QTH: Da Traesk
Operating Time (hrs): 48

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:   73
   80:   96
   40:  536
   20: 1831
   15:  462
   10:   45
------------
Total: 3043  Prefixes = 1051  Total Score = 5,904,518

Club: Worldwide Young Contesters

Comments:

Horrible propagations, we had about half of last years score. Barely any DX runs
except a bit on Sunday but nothing even close to spectacular. This one is a
contest we will decide to totally forget.

We had LB3HC as guest operator and he did a lot of operating and was a nice
addition to the team.

Our concept of working QSOs S&P on the running band need to be improved. We
had IMD issues with the preamp for the vertical located 500m away. So we had to
put attenuation before it and could only copy the very strongest signals. So I
will pull out 7/8" coax and start thinking about having a better antenna
system there too. Only about 400Q was worked "inband" because of
this.

Thanks for the QSOs!

Antennas
160m: 39mh vertical
 80m: 4-SQ
 40m: 3/3el   + 4-SQ
 20m: 6/6/6el + 5el  + 4el @EU
 15m: 6/6el   + 5el
 10m: 6/6el   + 6el @46m

QSX: Vertical 500m away for listening to the same band

Radios: 2xFT1000MP MKV + TS480
Amps:   4CX1500B + ACOM 2000A (Sponsored by Ojojoj Music AB)

CQ-M score

                    CQ-M International DX Contest

Call: SJ2W
Operator(s): SM2LIY SM2WMV
Station: SJ2W

Class: M/S HP
QTH: Da Traesk
Operating Time (hrs): 19

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Mults
---------------------------
  160:    15     0     15
   80:   115     0     30
   40:   246    56     42
   20:   481   266     69
   15:   513    66     71
   10:    39     0     22
---------------------------
Total:  1409   388    249  Total Score = 1,006,209

Club: Worldwide Young Contesters

Comments:

Was nice conditions this time, we did not plan to work serious, but became quite
good result. We worked some inband QSOs as preparation for WPX CW.
It worked quite ok listening to a 3 band vertical in the forrest with a preamp
500m away. Sorry if you had to wait for our numbers when the runner was
occupying the TX.

It was fun and we might consider to go all in next year doing this one serious,
very good activity.

Antennas
160m: 39mh vertical
 80m: 4-SQ
 40m: 3/3el   + 4-SQ
 20m: 6/6/6el + 5el  + 4el @EU
 15m: 6/6el   + 5el
 10m: 6/6el   + 6el @46m

Radios: 2xFT1000MP MKV
Amps:   4CX1500B + ACOM 2000A (Sponsored by Ojojoj Music AB)
RX: 3-band vertical + preamp 500m away from main antennas

Pouring some concrete

I am spending the week down at the station preparing for WPX CW coming up and also doing some work on the house. I decided to get a concrete floor in the room where I have the openASC driver cards and also the pump for the water in the house. For some reason only half of the floor was concrete and the rest was sand, so I decided to change that. It was a bit tough work though mixing the concrete will the drill and doing it by myself, I had a walk with buckets down and pour it. It did harden quite fast so I had to hurry as well…when I do the big room we need to be more people and also I need to use a real concrete mixer.

Last week I also built a unit which will solve the inband issues I had with PTTing that I will try to install tomorrow so I have plenty of time fixing if something doesn’t work as intended. On Thursday I am going to get a visit from my father together with SM3LIC and SM3UZS which will be fun. LB3HC will arrive on Thursday evening and will be spending a few days at SJ2W and also working WPX CW with us.

I also finished up some minor things on the house, so now two sides are completely done and one side is 95% done, so pretty much just one side left to do, which I hope to have done in June so the rest of the year can be spent on radio stuff.