ARRL 160m contest

While attending Microwave update I managed to get an invite to operate the ARRL 160m contest from the Downeastmicrowave site in Florida

I flew from Heathrow on Dec 3 to Orlando via Charlotte, NC. It was to be my first flight on an AA Airbus made plane. Unfortunately it broke so we spent two hours getting it fixed at Heathrow. This resulted in missing the Charlotte connection and being put on the standby list for the next flight. Luckily I was 1st on the standby list and was the only one (of 36 standby) to board. Steve and Sandy met me at Orlando and after supper we drove the 3 hours to Live Oak

The station and antennas were all ready to go, so all i needed was a training session which was easy as we were to use a pair of K3, The available multipliers were ARRL sections (83) and countries. The contest started at 1700 local time I shared the shift to 0300 doing most of the "running", then had a sleep.  The band closes at 1000 and we resumed at 1500. Again I operated till 0200 then sleep. During this period we managed to work the final two sections (NL and ND) needed for a clean sweep of all 83 sections. The contest ended at 1000 local time. The final claimed score was as follows:-



                             Band     QSOs     Pts    Sec
                               1.8    1314        3201  136                     Score: 435,336

The final result:-

The Transmit Antenna

After the contest i hooked up the 1000' NE beverage to my RSP2PRO to take a listen on 474kHz WSPR. I was surprised to see so much of G0MRF:-

191210 0006   1 -30 -0.19   0.4757844  G0MRF IO91 37           0  5279km
191210 0138   2 -25 -0.23   0.4757845  G0MRF IO91 37       
191210 0208   2 -26 -0.23   0.4757845  G0MRF IO91 37
191210 0216   2 -23 -0.36   0.4757843  G0MRF IO91 37
191210 0232   2 -25 -0.27   0.4757845  G0MRF IO91 37 
191210 0238   1 -28 -0.27   0.4757845  G0MRF IO91 37
191210 0304   3 -23 -0.27   0.4757845  G0MRF IO91 37   
191210 0548   1 -28 -0.53   0.4757846  G0MRF IO91 37
191210 0602   2 -27 -0.53   0.4757845  G0MRF IO91 37   

LF season approaching

As the winter is approaching it was time to think LF again. When I bought the main parts for the MF amplifier from Dave G0MRF at the HF convention I also ordered one of his preamp kits. I managed to squeeze it into a small pomona box, time to try it out

Initially I connected it to my Alpha Delta DX-EE and ANAN-10 and left it receiving WSPR using K1JT's new1.7.0RC2 WSJT-X software. It seemed to do well:

Time	Call	dB	Loc	Power	km
18:22	G4FTC	-21	IO91pi	2	137
18:36	PA0A	-24	JO33de	1	591
18:38	LA8AV	-28	JO59cs	5	1151
19:56	G3WCE	-29	JO02pt	1	255
23:52	F1AFJ	-27	JN06ht	1	625
00:46	DJ0ABR	-29	JN68nt	0.2	1148
00:54	G8HUH	-19	IO81mg	1	103
01:16	PA3ABK/2	-25	JO21it	0.5	481

The preamp reduced the LOS droitwich 198kHz on my system.

During the evening  I wondered what was on 136kHz. So I dug out my old G0MRF 136khz preamp and let it run for a short period, while, again connected it to my Alpha Delta DX-EE and ANAN-10 receiving WSPR decoded 2 stations

Time	Call	dB	Loc	Power	km
22:00	G8HUH	-20	IO81mg	0.1	103
22:04	2E0ILY	-12	IO82qv	0.01	91

Upgrading the K3S for 475kHz

Having had the initial try of the K3S on 475kHz here It was time to properly implement the low frequency bands on the K3S. The first step was to convert both KBPF3 to KBPF3A (one on the main RX one on the SUBRX). It is a simple process requiring the removal of 2 inductors from the board and adding 3 capacitors in parallel with existing capacitors. To make it look neater I actually replaced the existing capacitors. While the KRX3 was open I also added the electrolytic capacitor specified across the 9V rail. The whole process took 30 minutes

While the box was open I also added the K3EXREF 10MHz lock board and the K144XV (with K144RFLK)

I hooked up the RX antenna port to the PA0RDT active antenna in the loft and was pleased to see some DX:-

Timestamp	Call	MHz	SNR	Drift	Grid	Pwr			km	az
2016-03-28 00:04	G0MRF	0.475770	-13	0	IO91tk	5			151	300
2016-03-28 00:00	DK7FC	0.475682	-20	0	JN49ik	1			827	295
2016-03-27 23:50	DH5RAE	0.475755	-28	0	JN68qv	0.5			1161	294
2016-03-27 23:16	PA3ABK/2	0.475785	-24	0	JO21it	0.5			481	277
2016-03-27 23:14	F1AFJ	0.475703	-27	0	JN06ht	1			625	341
2016-03-27 22:26	DJ0ABR	0.475665	-30	0	JN68nt	0.2			1148	294