432 SPRING SPRINT 2017
SINGLE OPERATOR LOW POWER (hilltop portable)








ANTENNA SYSTEM

  2-stack of Directive Systems and Engineering DSFO432-15RS "rover special" 15-el yagis









RADIO EQUIPMENT

    Icom IC-7000 mobile
    8 watts

    external ARR preamp

    TE Systems 4410G amplifier, preamp turned off








DESCRIPTION

The main amplifier died sometime during the January VHF Contest or during testing afterward. I am still waiting for the new 200w TE Systems amplifier that I already ordered in 2015. So my choices were to operate in the QRP category with transceiver power, or temporarily re-install the spare amplifier and get 50 watts. Since I had the time, I wired up the spare amp. It was a good move, since conditions at the start of the sprint showed heavy QSB and skewed paths, and later I noticed there was no east/west propagation beyond adjacent grids. The north/south propagation was good, though, as evidenced by working 337 miles / 542 km to Virginia station WA4LM in FM27. That would be the best DX of the sprint (by 100 miles over the second place best DX). The other notable contact was working NC1I, a callsign I haven't heard since the late 1990's through early 2000's when NC1I multi-op was on the air with big signals from the Massachusetts portion of FN32. I also worked one of their operators--Ron, WZ1V. Unfortunately, the possibility exists that the callsign was NZ1I and I copied it wrong. All the time spent calling CQ to the east and west resulted in zero QSOs in those directions.







POINTS SUMMARY



BAND   QSOs   GRIDS
-----------------------------
432     12      9


 --- claimed score = 108 ---









LOG


MD  UTC   CALLSIGN   GRID
--------------------------------
PH  2313  K1TEO      FN31
CW  2339  KA2LIM/R   FN12
CW  0001  K1PXE      FN31
PH  0053  NC1I       FN32
PH  0100  AA2UK      FM29
PH  0101  WZ1V       FN31
CW  0120  WA4LM      FM27
CW  0125  K3MD       FN10
CW  0127  K3TUF      FN10
CW  0131  WA2FGK     FN21
PH  0203  WA2LTM     FN20
CW  0242  K1RZ       FM19






N2SLN FN22