Contest are good tests, not only for one’s operating skills, but also for one’s equipment. Witness my experience yesterday operating the Fists Winter Sprint.
Last winter, using homebrew 20m ground plane, I scored 5,300 points. This winter, using a 30m dipole tuned to 20m, I scored barely 3,300 points. This was a very disappointing result, considering that band conditions were very good yesterday.
The only thing that I can think of that would make such a big difference is the antenna. I was going to put up the 20m grounnd plane, but got lazy. I’d tuned up the 30m dipole on 20m the weekend earlier and made some contacts with it, and thought that it would do for the contest. Unfortunately, that turned out not to be the case.
Several times I called stations in the S4-S5 range, and they either could not hear me or I wasn’t strong enough to complete the contact. I also tried several times to camp on a frequency and call CQ on it, but was mostly unsuccessful in getting anyone to respond to my call. My guess is that I was 2-3 S units weaker than stations I contacted. I can see that I’m going to have to get that 20m ground plane back up before the next contest.
One bright spot was the N3FJP logging software I used. It worked very nicely during the contest, and it was a snap to produce the text file needed to file the log. One thing I wish it would do is export in Cabrillo format, but the Fists guy seems happy enough to accept the text file. I didn’t try using the CW output feature, but next contest, I’m going to hook that up and try it out. I want it all to be working by the Michigan QSO Party, so that when Field Day rolls around, it will work like a charm.
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