In the mail today, I received something totally unexpected—a certificate proclaiming WA2HOM to be the first place finisher in the multi-operator, single-transmitter category of the 2011 CQ World Wide WPX contest.
With such a low score, I don’t supposed that we had many competitors in that category, but it’s still pretty cool.
To break in the new beam yesterday, down at the museum, we participated in a couple of contests: the CQ Manchester Mineira DX Contest (MM) and the Michigan QSO Party (MIQP). All I can say is, “WOW!!”
I got there just before 11 am. Jim, K8ELR, was already there making out QSL cards. Since the MIQP didn’t start until noon, I thought I’d tune around and see what bands were open. I first tried 15m CW. That’s how I discovered the MM DX contest. The band was very open to Europe, especially with the new beam. In short order, I worked a dozen or more Europeans and Caribbean stations.
What a difference the beam makes! With the 20m inverted vee, nearly every QSO was a challenge, but with the beam, I worked every station I called, usually on the first try. This was so amazing that I was actually getting a little giddy.
About 11:45 am, I decided that I better get set up for the MIQP. I had brought my WinKeyer (since the Omni VII doesn’t have a memory keyer!), and wanted to hook it up to the N1MM program. I had done this quite easily at home, but I could not, unfortunately, get it to work on the computer down at the museum. The computer seemed to be talking to the keyer, but the function keys didn’t work. (If anyone has any ideas on what I’m doing wrong, I’d be happy to hear them.)
A little after noon, I decided to give up on this, and just program the keyer itself and operate stand-alone. About 12:10, we were working the MIQP on 20m using the callsign W8CWN, the callsign of H. Richard Crane, a distinguished professor of physics at the University of Michigan and one of the founders of the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum.
Again, the performance of the beam was just spectacular, at least compared to our 20m inverted vee. We pointed the beam west and easily worked stations on the West Coast. We pointed the beam east and got calls from Europeans and the East Coast.
Using the beam, our noise level seemed to be lower, too, although not as low as I would like it. We’re going to have to work on that some more.
We worked a lot of 40m, too, using our 40m inverted vee. That antenna has always worked pretty well for us, and the band was in good shape yesterday afternoon. There was a lot of short skip on 40m, allowing us work quite a few Michigan counties.
Overall, we made 195 contacts in nearly five hours. That’s certainly not championship form, but it’s a lot better than we’ve done in the past, and we really had a blast, both operating the contest and explaining what we were doing to the museum visitors. It’s just too bad that the museum closed at 5pm and we had to stop.
It’s been one heckuva project, but the tower and beam are now up and running at WA2HOM.
I’d like to thank everyone involved in this project: Roger, W8OMB, for donating the beam; Jack, WT8N, who really spearheaded the project; Jim, K8ELR; Ovide, K8EV; Rob, KD8PUC; and of course, all the museum people: Mel, the museum director; Dave, the old facilities manager; and Doug, the new facilities director.
As you can see from the photos below, we still have some work left to do. We’re going to be taking down the 30-ft. mast (in the foreground) and moving the dipoles back so that they hand from the tower. And, since we no longer need a 20m inverted vee, we’ll be disconnecting the 20m elements and attaching some 30m elements.
After raising the tower yesterday, Ovide and Jim made a couple of contacts, one on 15m phone and one on 20m phone. They report that both guys gave us 59 signal reports. What a change from the puny signal we used to have on 20m.
Tomorrow, we’re really going to be putting this antenna system to the test as we operate the MI QSO Party. We’ll be using the callsign W8CWN, which used to belong to Dr. Richard Crane, the U-M physicist who was a great science educator and built many of the early displays down at the museum. Listen for us, and give us a call if you hear us.
The tower is up! This the view of our tower and beam from the north, facing the main entrance of the museum. In the foreground is our 30' mast, with the 40m and 20m inverted vees.
This is Doug (left), the museum's new facilities manager, and Ovide, K8EV (right), discussing how best to raise the tower.
From left to right: Dan, KB6NU; Jim, K8ELR; and Jack, WT8N in the WA2HOM shack after the tower-raising. We can't believe that the tower is finally up and the beam is working like a charm.
Hi everyone. 20 and 15meters were really jumping this weekend. The California QSO party was going this weekend and I made 10 ssb CA contacts on 20meters Saturday. I was very surprised to hear so much activity on 15 meters. So I made another 10 ssb CA contacts on Sunday.
Also on Saturday and Sunday I made a few contacts using psk31, psk63. Man that was a blast.
Come down to the station and join us. I can be contacted at my call (K8ELR) at arrl dot net.
73!!!!!
Jim K8ELR
WA2HOM won the Feld-Hell monthly Sprint for July 2010. This is the first and only thing I ever won in Amatuer Radio. I was very surprised when I ( I was operating WA2HOM) received word that I won. 73! Jim K8ELR
We have had great success running digital modes with the SignaLink hooked up to the Ten Tech Omni VII.
We have made Feld Hell, SSTV, RTTY, PSK and Olivia contacts. We use HRD/DM780 and it works well. Although we use DM780 and I have no complaints I would like to try other software. ROS sounds cool too but is not legal in the USA due to it using spread spectrum.
Unfortunately the tower and beam are not up yet. It was going to be installed in May and here it is July and we are still waiting. So we are still using our inverted V dipoles at about 30 feet.
If you are in the area or just want to visit email me Jim k8elr or Dan kb6nu and we would be glad to give you a demo and let you operate the station.
Later and 73!
Jim K8ELR
Jack, WT8N; Jim, K8ELR, and I met this afternoon with the folks at the museum, and the plan now is that our tower and beam will be up by the end of May. That’s really great news. Get the tower and beam in place should make WA2HOM a really great station to operate.
In other news: