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.

2 comments on “WB2VVV – ARRL 160 Meters

  1. Great effort Chris, nice to work you on Topband in the contest.

    What is your ‘mystery’ antenna, please describe further??

    73, Bill W1WBB

  2. Thanks Bill. As to the antenna I can’t put an attachment here on a comment, so will start another thread as the first post in the thread does allow an attachment, and a picture/sketch will be worth a thousand words. 73, Chris WB2VVV

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