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President's Message
I hope that everyone has had an enjoyable holiday season. It is a hectic time of year for all, but a good time to enjoy the good things in our lives.
The club has been a great place for many of us to go to in order to get away from the hustle and bustle for a couple of hours a week. I hope that many more folks will be able to use the club in the coming year as a place to sit around and chat and have a good time away from our everyday stresses. The shack is there for all to use.
A special thanks to Pete, KA1AXY, for upgrading our computer to a 386 with 8Mb of RAM. We are looking to install Windows one of these days. We also have a new addition of a dip coffee maker, thanks to Rick, K1LOG. So when you drop by there will be a fresh cup of coffee and a new computer to play with. Thanks guys!!
I am looking forward to hearing Sharon's, KC1YR, talk on Bosnia at the club meeting this month. I know there is some good news from there and know all will be interested to hear the latest.
Have a safe new year and a great 1997.
Operating the 160 Meter Contest
by Sumner Weisman, W1VIV
Although not politically correct in the 90s, 160 meters has always been called the "Gentleman's Band". Up to a year ago I had never operated on this band, although I was very curious to see what it was like. Were people really more polite? 1.8 Mhz is a really low frequency, just above the AM broadcast band. A half wave dipole would be about 250 feet long!
Getting on the air turned out to be pretty easy. I simply unplugged my trusty G5RV "W1DL Special" antenna that was strung between two sturdy oak trees across the front yard, shorted the center conductor of the coax to the shield, and connected it to the unbalanced wire terminal on my antenna tuner. It loaded up perfectly. Used in this manner, most of the effective radiation comes from the vertical section. You can consider it to be a vertical long wire with a capacity hat, although at this frequency, "short wire" would be more accurate. I worked somebody just to prove to myself that it was operating correctly, got a fairly good report, and then proceeded to put it out of my mind.
Each year when QST would describe the 160 meter contest, I would be intrigued. This year, I made up my mind to try it. I would operate barefoot, since my SB-220 linear doesn't cover 160. This is a CW contest only, and this year it ran from 2200 UTC Friday, December 6th through 1600 UTC Sunday December 8th. That's
5 P.M. Friday through noon Sunday local time. The object is to work as many US, Canadian and DX stations as possible.
Well, I had a great time. It was quite easy to work stations in about a 1000 mile radius. After some period of time, I had all the available multipliers within this area. I then started concentrating on working further out. With 100 watts and a poor antenna, I was able to work South Texas, Colorado, and others. Not bad! I operated until 2 A.M. Saturday and called it quits. 160 has a lot of electrical noise during the day, and therefore is not used very much except in the evening. In spite of that, there was contest activity, and I racked up more points Saturday morning and part of the afternoon.
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