Here are a couple of summaries of contest activity both from on the farm and off.
Well off to a miserable start to begin the contest year. The weather sucks and most of the antennas do not radiate but they do take a KW. Where the hell is the power going?
Caldwell, Lala, and other Bill worked at the farm most of Friday in the rain and cold to build Bill's 40m yagi. Caldwell went home at 5, ate big meal, and collapsed into a stupor. I got to farm with radio about 15 minutes before contest got onto the air about 15 minutes after contest started. Zero mike was there and we started out slow on 20m. We had the 4KL but still had trouble getting through to South Pacific and later S America. Time to go to 40m. What a horrible time. The 4KL pumps out the power into the spicket labeled 40m but where it goes, who knows? Can't work anything. Leave Tom to that misery and go out to fix inverted L.
So I'm running around in the rain and dark with a Coleman lantern throwing weights up into big tree trying to get wire end up high. Give up and tie it off at ground level. Install matching box and build splice cable to get into shack at base of tower. Go back inside and 0Mike is still trying to make contact on "dummy load". Grab bottle of Jim Beam and both have a shot in memory of Guy and agree that antennas are more important than power. Then Guy calls. He is having no fun either with low power and antennas at ground level. So our challenge is to beat Guy's score.
Decide to try inverted L. Loads up well, apply KW, OK for 5 seconds then SWR rises to infinity. Works OK on low power. Make one 160m contact. At our rate every contact is a mult. JOY Same weirdness on 80m. Better on 40m but still no contacts.
Bill wakes up and arrives at the farm to finish the 40m yagi. We try it and it works! Wonder of wonders. DX at our finger tips. 0Mike is besides himself with excitement. Go home at 2AM. Leave Caldwell to fend for himself.
So out to the farm this afternoon to fix inverted L. I think collapsed 80m sloper may have fallen into the L but can't see in the dark. At least the beam works.
From: Guy WestSubject: miserable pathetic score rumor cqww '95 X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1189
Taking a few moments to relax he checks the log 3hrs 1 QSO. ouch
40M was a total bust on Friday night, wasn't able to get above the noise level. Only somewhat better on Saturday night. 20M was also a problem due to the excessive (normal) QRM. Needed to find stations coming in at 15 over to have a prayer of working them. 15M was almost fun by comparison.
I think I got my worked all Caribbean, all south america and all canada awards. Had a real hard time getting anyone in Europe to hear me. Never even heard a pacific VK or Asia l..... Asian station.
I did have fun though, ate my contest chili , slept more than usual. In the wee morning hours after 40m quieted down I did work a few folks.
Here is the ugly truth band qso cnty zone 40m 10 8 6 20m 56 30 13 15m 50 26 11 ---------------------------- total 116 64 30 net score is 26320 plus no need to use the "new math" to add it all up Equipment TS820 with hombrew remote VFO (andy for split operation) Hustler with various resonators Jeep Cherokee (hitch mount antenna tower.) 1 element at 1 foot, life is too short. Hope you all had fun Tu Guy N0MMA