What I Learned: Part 2

If money was not a factor hams would have towers and beams and the top gear in order to communicate around the world. Unfortunately, like life, ham radio is not always fair. I have a small station with two antennas. Given an opportunity to have it configured in a “perfect” environment I would probably do okay when it came to chasing DX and contesting. In my case, a ground mounted vertical with less than adequate radial system along with a multi-band wire at 18′ above the ground are not the best, but I must make use of them.

Much like the start of the WPX RTTY contest last week excitement and anticipation filled the shack. As the clock changed to 0000z the CW calls began. For inquiring minds I still do not have a filter, which makes any CW contest a real challenge because strong adjacent signals completely wipe out signals I am trying to copy. I started on 20m at 14.001, planning to tune up chasing the all important DX stations. Believe me, there were more DX stations than I had seen before in my short time on HF.

I started to get frustrated when my calls would go unanswered. I had one Texas station respond to me ‘DX DX’ when I called him. Guess my one point was not worth it to him to give me a “5NN TX”. Fair enough. I tried contacting stations in Central and South America, Europe and West Africa…even Japan and Thailand all to no avail. I did QSO with an Asiatic Russian station (RU0LL), but beyond that my signal was weak and stronger signals on the band were making it almost impossible for me.

This is where patience enters in. Knowing full well from the onset of the contest I am not going to win, place or even show I would have to find signals I could hear, as well as find a window to respond to their “CQ TEST”. Even when everything aligned and there was a moment of silence, my signal was just not strong enough to be heard.

Understand I still have some rig/feed line/antenna issues I am deal with when it comes to the power output. But even at 25-50 watts out, someone SHOULD hear me. Right? I know QRP operators work the world on less than that, but understand their rig and antenna systems are probably better than what I am using.

Maybe I am making too many excuses and not exercising enough patience when it comes to chasing DX. Especially in a contest as big as the ARRL International DX – CW Contest. Even with a filter (or two) add the equation, DX would not be easy. It would still require time, effort and patience on my part to add new DXCC entities to my log. This is the part of radio I enjoy, spotting that new country and trying to make contact with them.

So after turning off the shack about 90 minutes into the contest yesterday, I will return today in order to give it another shot. While my expectations are realistic and conditions are still rather poor I do hope to add a few new countries to my log. With my set up Central and South America, the Caribbean, Japan and Russia should all be relatively easy to log. We will see.