IARU Contest July 2014

The IARU Contest was this weekend. We operated as N3BUO Multi Single High Power.

The Radio:
Gary WA5FWC won a Yaesu FTDX1200 at the Lone Star DX Association's Dinner at Hamcom in June.

The Antennas:
WA5FWC has a Multitude of antennas at his QTH. We only used these 5
1. A Homebrew 2 Element Quad for 20-10 and 4 Elements on 6 meters at 110 feet
2. A Homebrew 3 Element Quad for 20-10, 6 Elements on 6 meters and 2 Elements on 30 at 150 feet
3. 80 Meter 4-Square
4. Inverted Vee for 40 and 80 at 110 feet
5. Inverted Vee for 40 and 80 at 150 feet

The Amp:
The amplifier is a homebrew amp that uses (4) 572B and should put out about 100 watts. I was running RTTY before the contest and blew (2) tubes so we ran about 300 watts.

The Contest:
Gary WA5FWC started out his run on 15 meters and worked into the South Pacific and Japan after about an hour he moved to 20 meters and started his run. When I got there at 11:00 PM local he was still on 20 meters and had over 600 contacts.

When I arrived and took over, I went through and worked every HQ station that was on plus anything else I could find by search and pounce, About midnight I went to 80 meters and fought long and hard to get 82 contacts.  The noise was loud and the 4 square switcher was not working so it was an omni directional antenna.

About 1:00 AM I moved to 40 meters and worked everyone on the band map and found a space at 7.222 and started a run.  I was averaging 132 contacts an hour for the next couple hours. I moved back up to 20 meters pointed the High quad to 270 degrees and the low quad towards Japan. Worked many JA, VK, ZL and Europe. I was averaging about 100 q's an hour.

Around 3:00 am the 20 meter band dropped out and I rotated between 40 meters and 80 meters until Gary took over at 4:00 am.

Here our score summary:

Call: N3BUO
Operator(s): N3BUO WA5FWC
Station: N3BUO

Class: M/S HP
QTH: Venus, TX
Operating Time (hrs): 24

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Zones  HQ Mults
-------------------------------------
  160:                           
   80:           62    10       3
   40:          265    19      19
   20:          916    36      39
   15:          244    20      28
   10:           74    12       5
-------------------------------------
Total:   0     1561    97      94  Total Score = 914,699

Club: DFW Contest Group

Operating W1AW/5 at NR5M

I just spent Tuesday thru Saturday at W1AW/5 down at NR5M antenna Ranch. I wanted to thatnk George NR5M for his hospitality and to Chris N1XS for coordination the event. I had an absolute blast.  We were over 18,000 contacts when I left.

It was great to operate this super station in non-contest fun environment.

NR5M has a killer station with multiple amps and operating positions.  During the week I got to watch moon bounce contacts and meteor scatter activities (Thanks Marshall). In over 40 of Hamming I have never down this.

The bands were great and the antennas were phenomenal!!  I operated RTTY on 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10.  Talked to many friends I have made on the bands over the years.

On Saturday morning, I worked a large pile up of JA, YB and VK on 80 (Gary WA5FWC got the run going, He was up all night and I took over at 4 am) and on 40 meters.

On Friday night I work almost all of the VK and ZL in the world on 10 meters. NR5M has a 4 stack of Yagis a Two stack of Yagis and a single lower 30 foot 4 element yagi on 10 meters. The Lower single yagi was used for all of the pacific contacts and they were very loud!!


I did most of my contacts on 40, 20 and 15 in to Europe and the US.


RT - when you are ready to put your team together for your turn with W1AW/5 let me and WA5FWC know we would be more than happy to operate!

Gary WA5FWC took lots of pictures I will post them when I get them.

If you want to see George's Super station and watch the live web cam go to http://nr5m.com

Again thanks to George and Chris for the fun!!