12/11/2005 | W0EB Missed all the fun Friday night for some reason. I don't know why I didn't get on. Started early Saturday morning and worked some. Took frequent breaks, and even went to bed early Saturday night. Got up early Sunday and worked a bunch more until after the sun came up. Ran high power for the first time in a 160 meter contest, and it did make the difference. My antenna is an approximately 1/4 wave inverted U. It goes up 25 feet, out 70 feet to a pine tree in my front yard and back down 25 feet where it's tied off to the trunk (insulated). The only counterpoise in the system is an 8 foot ground rod right at the feedpoint. Coax shield goes to the ground rod, center goes to the wire. The amazing thing is it is virtually flat and I don't even need the tuner at 1820 KHz. In my 44 years of hamming, this is the only antenna I've ever had that would radiate a signal on 160. I've had many that would load up with a tuner, but never would couple much signal to the sky. This one was an accident that happened back last February in the ARRL International DX contest. So far, it ain't broke, and I ain't gonna fix it. Rig was an Icom IC706MKIIG with the 250 Hz CW filter and the amplifier a Ten Tec Centaur run on 120 Volts. That has since been remedied, and now have a 220 volt line run into the shack. I did this immediately after the contest shut down Sunday. It makes the Amp run a lot better, and doesn't even blink the shack lights now when I key it @ 650 watts on CW or 800 on SSB.

Even with my limited operating time, managed 250 Q's, 4 DX stations, including HC8N in the Galapagos, and 70 sections for a claimed score of 36400. My best 160 effort so far. I think I will get serious in the Stew-Perry coming up. Hope to see you all there?

Jim - -- W0EB