Sunday 17 July 2011

SARL Winter QRP contest 2011

SARL Winter QRP contest 2011

For this leg of the event, I operated as a field station and we set up at the Rynfield dam close to home. SWAMBO - Liz accompanied me and helped me set up my 80/40/20 metre inverted vee. This time I used the 8 M telescopic fibre glass mast and in turn anchored the mast to the vehicle tow hitch. It worked fairly well and I might do the same in the future.

It was a nice clear winters day, but the temprature was only 10 Celcius, so I elected to operate from the inside the vehicle. Not ideal, but certainly more cosy than braving the cold outside.

For the first hour of the contest, I only used the tiny HB-1a and managed to make 11 CW Q’s, not shabby considering the size of the transceiver and the fact that it only puts out 4 watts. The receiver is really sensitive. I did find that it was a bit hard on the ears when QRN was present.

For the remaining 2 hours I used my homebuilt Elecraft K2. It performed flawlessly once again. Managed to make a further 20 SSB Q’s

Conditions were strange. Most contacts were in the region of 700 km to 1300 km. The closer stations  were mostly skip. I could hear a few of them, but they did not hear me. Maybe they need better antennas?   J

Breakdown -  QSOs by division:
Div 1 = 9
Div 2 = 10
Div 3 = 4
Div 4 = 2
Div 5 = 2
Div 6 = 4   (2 of these were very difficult)

I was very pleased to see all the CW activity. With a bit of luck, this trend will continue.


3 comments:

  1. Well done Pierre - sorry about my CW attempt but my laptop did not want to play the game. I think it did not like battery power. I will have to check and see because it has worked before from battery power.

    Geoff

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  2. Pity I missed out.... Just too busy with the family visiting. Sorry!

    Chris (ZS6RI)

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  3. Grrrr I am having trouble replying to comments on my own blog.

    I am now using FireFox, maybe that will help.

    Geoff,
    Pity we missed out on making a QSO. Skip was brutal.

    Chris,
    I guess the family must come first. Next time perhaps we will see you take part.

    ReplyDelete