Tuesday, October 21, 2014

160 Meters

Well looks like it wont be long until the 160 meter contests start up. Both the ARRL and CQ 160 meter contests are really just around the corner. ARRL contest first week of December and then January is the CQWW 160 meter contest.
I have loads of fun in both the 160 tests and usually do quite well running 5 watts QRP. Each year I have done the tests I usually end up with a Certificate, but heck, if no one else enters and sends in their scores I guess that makes it easy to place huh?????

I run a sideways "L" antenna , not the typical inverted "L".
I run out about 125' to a pole in the backyard, then take the other 60' and run it to a right angle and down to about 5' from the ground, the end at the house is on a 15'pole that is grounded, I use a balun at the feed and coil the coax as well into about 10 1' turns. This antenna tunes very fast on 160 and its actual match at the shack is about 3:1 at the low end of the band. I have a 6' ground rod at the base and no radials.

What I do find on 160 is that stations have no problem hearing me, however for me if I work the test both nights because of ground-wave propagation the stations I worked the night before are the same stations I hear the next night, my best chance to work stations out of my ground-wave is  usually at sunset and sunrise.

This year I will give the KX3 a workout at 5 watts in the test.

73
Fred
VE3FAL

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