WB2VVV – ARRL 160 Meters

I was able to operate the ARRL 160 meter contest this past weekend with the same antenna I had just put up a couple of years ago to make 50 or so QRP QSOs – because I was afraid back then of scorching the home-brew 4:1 balun I had “temporarily” installed. This is an interesting antenna that has only one single central support that is only 35-40 feet high, and receives very well, so it is a single transceiving antenna. Running QRP I wasn’t terribly convinced that it transmitted very well since it was pretty obvious that a lot of stations weren’t hearing me – though having previously operated QRP on other bands at other times I knew this is quite normal when running QRP.

Naturally as with other good antennas it fell down between then and now – the central support rope became abraded and broke. With it back up, and with the same questionable home-brew balun I decided to try operating this year’s contest QRO and started the contest running only 300 Watts and as the hours passed by and I gained more confidence in my still “temporary” balun. I slowly worked my way up to 1 KW and the balun held up fine with my intermittent Search & Pounce operating style. The log says I made 175 QSOs including 7 DX QSOs, and stateside I was able to work out to California, Texas, and Florida. Operating QRO was so much easier with less repeats, though I again concluded I could hear better than 90% of the stations I worked. OTOH, without a wall of stations between us some of the overseas stations were hearing me very well and I was able to work them on the first call on pretty clear frequencies with no repeats – as I think very few folks were even hearing them at all. I ended up with 20,034 points for the club, Single Op – No Assistance – High Power.

If anyone has further interest in my 160 meter transceiving antenna I would be happy to provide more details.