04/06/10 — Received new set of tubes for AL-811. Now I have an amp for the 2nd radio, albeit not legal limit.
CQ WPX SSB
03/29/10 — CQ WPX SSB — I operated 21 hours 40 minutes as a SOAB HP NON-ASSISTED (SO2R)
Band QSOs Pts WPX
1.8 4 4 2
3.5 39 62 18
7 208 395 95
14 759 1144 245
21 475 971 232
28 58 163 29
Total 1543 2739 621 Score : 1,700,919
W5WZ Max Rates:
2010-03-27 0002Z – 5.0 per minute (1 minute(s)), 300 per hour by W5WZ
2010-03-27 0011Z – 3.2 per minute (10 minute(s)), 192 per hour by W5WZ
2010-03-27 0305Z – 2.3 per minute (60 minute(s)), 139 per hour by W5WZ
W5WZ Runs >10 QSOs:
2010-03-27 0000 – 0029Z, 21219 kHz, 66 Qs, 134.2/hr W5WZ
2010-03-27 0039 – 0050Z, 21219 kHz, 12 Qs, 63.0/hr W5WZ
2010-03-27 0053 – 0125Z, 21219 kHz, 58 Qs, 108.4/hr W5WZ
2010-03-27 0141 – 0223Z, 14184 kHz, 97 Qs, 137.3/hr W5WZ
2010-03-27 0224 – 0307Z, 14184 kHz, 91 Qs, 128.5/hr W5WZ
2010-03-27 0323 – 0347Z, 7162 kHz, 33 Qs, 82.5/hr W5WZ
2010-03-27 0350 – 0438Z, 7161 kHz, 50 Qs, 62.8/hr W5WZ
2010-03-27 0441 – 0523Z, 7161 kHz, 55 Qs, 79.3/hr W5WZ
2010-03-27 0543 – 0556Z, 3660 kHz, 21 Qs, 95.6/hr W5WZ
2010-03-27 0622 – 0637Z, 7203 kHz, 31 Qs, 122.4/hr W5WZ
2010-03-27 1304 – 1322Z, 21213 kHz, 34 Qs, 108.8/hr W5WZ
2010-03-27 1337 – 1355Z, 21262 kHz, 18 Qs, 60.3/hr W5WZ
2010-03-27 1529 – 1547Z, 21214 kHz, 29 Qs, 98.4/hr W5WZ
2010-03-27 1556 – 1630Z, 21214 kHz, 50 Qs, 89.8/hr W5WZ
2010-03-27 1636 – 1644Z, 21214 kHz, 12 Qs, 84.7/hr W5WZ
2010-03-27 1658 – 1711Z, 14176 kHz, 13 Qs, 61.3/hr W5WZ
2010-03-27 1731 – 1940Z, 14295 kHz, 170 Qs, 79.4/hr W5WZ
2010-03-27 2229 – 2239Z, 21230 kHz, 11 Qs, 65.1/hr W5WZ
2010-03-27 2244 – 2352Z, 21230 kHz, 91 Qs, 79.5/hr W5WZ
2010-03-28 0004 – 0135Z, 14219 kHz, 170 Qs, 111.0/hr W5WZ
2010-03-28 2240 – 2249Z, 21235 kHz, 17 Qs, 119.5/hr W5WZ
Station Building Continues
02/28/10 — Constructed my first beverage antenna. It is 285 feet, oriented at 45 degrees. Average height above ground is 5 feet. My homebrew feedpoint transformer is of ON4UN design on a FT-114-43 core. I used the design from the 3rd edition of Low Band DXing by ON4UN as found on page 7-16, figure 7-17.
Now only time will tell if it works! Right now at 23:32 UTC on 28Feb2010, I hear EA6DX calling CQ on 3.506.
02/23/10 — Made a deal to acquire (2) Tic Ringrotors model 1022D. Now I’ll be able to rotate the lower 2 antenna! I hope to get them on the tower before really hot weather gets here.
Pair of Spring Contests
02/15/10 — Managed to operate 3.5 hours of the Louisiana QSO Party
Band Mode QSOs Pts Sec
3.5 CW 1 4 1
3.5 LSB 4 8 1
7 CW 1 4 1
7 LSB 21 42 5
14 USB 344 688 59
Total Both 371 746 67
01/20/10 — 4 hours and 56 minutes of fun in NAQP SSB
NA QSO SSB – 2010-01-16 1800Z to 2010-01-17 0600Z – 407 QSOs
W5WZ Max Rates:
2010-01-16 1924Z – 5.0 per minute (1 minute(s)), 300 per hour by W5WZ
2010-01-16 1933Z – 3.5 per minute (10 minute(s)), 210 per hour by W5WZ
2010-01-16 2007Z – 2.1 per minute (60 minute(s)), 126 per hour by W5WZ
W5WZ Runs >10 QSOs:
2010-01-16 1822 – 1903Z, 21315 kHz, 67 Qs, 96.3/hr W5WZ
2010-01-16 1919 – 1946Z, 14314 kHz, 83 Qs, 182.3/hr W5WZ
2010-01-16 1949 – 2011Z, 14316 kHz, 39 Qs, 103.8/hr W5WZ
2010-01-17 0005 – 0017Z, 14195 kHz, 20 Qs, 104.3/hr W5WZ
2010-01-17 0026 – 0058Z, 7203 kHz, 60 Qs, 110.5/hr W5WZ
2010-01-17 0101 – 0145Z, 7188 kHz, 78 Qs, 106.2/hr W5WZ
Total Time Off 07:04 (424 mins)
Total Time On 04:56 (296 mins)
Ice Storm #2
02/03-04/2011 — 2nd ice storm in only 2 weeks. Rare enough in LA; this frequency is really rare. All appears to have survived once again.
K3 upgrades!!!
01/30/11 — Placed an order with Elecraft for 1.8kHz and 250Hz 8-pole filters for the K3. Should receive them at weeks end. I plan to go with 2.8, 2.1, 1.8, 400 & 250 8-poles in the main receiver. I’ll have a 13, 6, and 1000 on hand as well.
NAQP SSB Jan 2011
NAQP SSB Jan 2011 —
Total Time On 10:00 (600 mins)
Band QSOs Pts Sec NA
1.8 1 1 1 0
3.5 95 95 36 0
7 230 230 43 1
14 342 342 45 1
21 62 62 15 0
28 1 1 1 0
Total 731 731 141 2
Score: 104,533
Fun contest as always! Some really great runs! (I remembered to press F1 in N1MM!) At one point on 40m I saw the ‘Last 10’ rate hit 500. Average of 73.1 Q per hour for 10 hours. My recently built Inv-L for 160m had very high SWR, so it was not usable. Never heard anything on 10m (was listening at 28.4 first hour or so while running on 20m).
————– Q S O R a t e S u m m a r y ————–
Hour 160 80 40 20 15 10 Total Pct
————————————————————-
1800 0 0 0 141 1 0 142 19.2
1900 0 0 0 73 22 0 95 12.9
2000 0 0 0 28 22 0 50 6.8
2100 0 0 1 19 17 0 37 5.0
2200 0 0 7 69 0 0 76 10.3
2300 0 0 68 11 0 0 79 10.7
0000 0 1 41 0 0 0 42 5.7
0100 0 10 64 1 0 0 75 10.1
0200 1 5 45 0 0 1 52 7.0
0300 0 79 4 0 0 0 83 11.2
0400 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
0500 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
——————————————————
Total 1 95 230 342 62 1 731
Gross QSO’s=739 Dupes=8 Net QSO’s=731
Unique callsigns worked = 628
The best 60 minute rate was 152/hour from 1808 to 1907
The best 30 minute rate was 178/hour from 1807 to 1836
The best 10 minute rate was 228/hour from 1813 to 1822
The best 1 minute rates were:
6 QSO’s/minute 1 times.
5 QSO’s/minute 8 times.
4 QSO’s/minute 18 times.
3 QSO’s/minute 62 times.
2 QSO’s/minute 117 times.
Website Updates
01/02/10 — Just updated many photos and descriptions on the website. Installed 2nd cross arm on tower at 105 feet for hanging dipoles. Moved my 160m Inv-V to that location.
2009 Fall Contest Season
11/28/09 — W5WZ operated SOAB-ASSISTED LOW in CQWWCW. As I only had a few brief time periods to operatate, my main goal was learning more about N1MM and the bandmaps/multiplier point and shoot while also adding to my DXCC totals.
Band QSOs Pts Cty ZN
3.5 5 8 3 3
7 76 206 47 19
14 91 238 37 23
21 20 57 16 11
28 8 24 3 3
Total 200 533 106 59
11/23/09 — A four-man team of Louisiana Contest Club members operated Nov SS SSB HP at W5WZ – W5WZ, K5ER, AA5LA and KC5WA. We had lots of fun!
Band QSOs Pts Sec
3.5 95 190 14
7 177 354 22
14 652 1304 14
21 231 462 30
Total 1155 2310 80
10/24/09 — W5WZ operated SOAB-ASSISTED-HIGH in CQWWSSB
Band QSOs Pts Cty ZN
1.8 2 0 1 1
3.5 18 39 12 8
7 93 231 48 14
14 153 361 31 23
21 64 169 39 12
28 5 12 4 4
Total 335 812 135 62
August 2009
08/16/09 — Just finished a full 10 hours of NAQP, from the starting gun with no breaks. Now I know why I need some receiving antenna for 40-80-160. Also know that I need better transmitting antenna on at least 160 and 80.
Band QSOs Mults
——————-
160: 1 1
80: 28 11
40: 220 41
20: 388 49
15: 21 12
10: 1 1
——————-
Total: 659 115 Total Score = 76,444
08/13/09 — Installed the 160m dipole on the crossarm at 75′. I should have put it up at 105′, but will wait until I get a 2nd crossarm up there, so that I can have more options. Completed the last jumpers from my SixPack to the row of Polyphasers. Finally have 6 independent bands worth of monoband antenna fully available in the shack. Finished recording the various *.wav files (including the letters.wav, both letter and phonetic style) for use with N1MM.
08/06/09 — Received, modified and installed the last StackMatch controller. I’m inching closer to being fully operational. John WE3C gave me the tip back at Dayton to make a goal to complete at least one task each day on the station. That was good advice; I’ve tried to do so, and the progress is amazing!
08/02/09 — Made a minor repair to my homebrewed PC-soundcard interface (Icom ProData, from QST March 2002). Verified operation with N1MM. Trying to get ready for NAQP SSB on August 15th. Made a few PSK contacts.
08/01/09 — Mounted a cross arm on the tower at 75′ from which I can suspend two dipoles, etc. Installed my 80m dipole as inverted Vee at that point. I had been off 80m since early April, when a limb fell and broke the old dipole which was up 30 feet.