FALL 432 SPRINT 2015
SINGLE OPERATOR CATEGORY (hilltop portable FN22)
ANTENNA SYSTEM
- stacked Directive Systems 15-element Rover Special Yagis
RADIO EQUIPMENT
Icom IC-7000 mobile
4 watts
TE Systems 4410G amplifier at 25 watts out plus preamp
DESCRIPTION
With the new rover van still under construction, I used the same technique as I used in the 2m sprint: Drive to the local
hilltop, use a small prop to keep the hood open just a few inches, and place the amplifier under the hood, clipping the power
leads directly to the battery. The transceiver was powered by an accessory jack on the dashboard, so to prevent tripping the
breaker, I turned the transceiver power down to 4 watts. This was an untested method, and luckily it held for the whole
event. The propagation started off very difficult with QSB swings from S0 to S5 on one local station and I remember worrying
that 432 was going to act like a microwave band all night. But conditions stabilized after the first half hour and stayed
good the rest of the night. One third of my contacts were CW. I noticed, as did others, that there were lots of contacts
being made off the side and back of the antenna. Most notably I worked VE3CRU/R who was at 311 degrees when my antenna was
pointed at 90 degrees. I told him to wait because I was going to bring the beam around, but then I decided not to waste the
time and we made the contact just fine. The big story, though, has to be the unexpectedly good activity levels overall. This
is my second best result in this event, beaten only by 2013 when there was tropo. It was great revenge on last year when I
was getting hit with receiver desense and intermod using a different hilltop. Best DX contacts are 248 miles (398 km) into
the state of Maine and 230 miles (371 km) to Ontario.
POINTS SUMMARY
BAND QSOs UNIQUE
GRIDS
---------------------------
432 21 13
--- Claimed score = 273 ---
LOG
MD TIME CALLSIGN GRID OTHER
--------------------------------
PH 2311 K3TUF FN10
PH 2321 KA2LIM/P FN12
PH 2325 VE3ZV EN92
PH 2331 WZ1V FN31
CW 2357 K1WHS FN43
PH 0008 K1TEO FN31
PH 0011 N2SLO FN30
CW 0053 N2DCH FN22
CW 0100 K1PXE FN31
CW 0109 WB2BYP FN13
CW 0111 AB2YI/R FN02
CW 0114 WA2VNV FN30
PH 0125 VE3CRU/R FN04
PH 0141 WA2LTM FN20
PH 0153 VE3CRU/R FN03
PH 0209 W9KXI FN12
PH 0212 VA3ST FN03
CW 0229 AC2BL FN23
PH 0246 AB2YI/R FN12
PH 0251 WA2ONK FN20
PH 0259 K2SMN FN20