While not normally a contester, I decided to take the plunge and make as many QSO's as I could in my spare time. My operating in the contest was interleaved with other household responsibilities.

My station consisted of a TS-140 transceiver, a TICK-2B keyer (has only one memory) and a dipole. The dipole is about 200 feet long, only averages 25 feet high over sloping ground, and is off-center fed with ladder line. Knowing my antenna is so close to the ground I did not know what to expect in terms of performance. Surprisingly I was heard, often on the first or second try except when large numbers of stations were calling.

Results: in 8 hours 150 QSO's in 37 sections. All of zones 2,3,4,8 and 9 were worked. Zone 1 was all worked except I did not even hear Maine. I also worked AR, NTX, MS, IA, MN, VE2 and VE3. I did hear MO and VI but could not work them through the pile-ups - and in the pile-up for VI many other unworked sections were heard.

Yes my rate was modest but so was my resources and skills. All logging and dupe checking was done on paper. And only one memory meant that exchanges were sent manually with the keyer. Since it took a little time to reprogram the keyer, I did not call CW very often. Nearly all contacts were made hunting up and down the band. As a result, my best rate was the first hour when I made 33 QSO's. After that, too much time was occupied hearing the same stations and checking the dupe sheet when memory failed me. And when I missed someone on the dupe sheet, about 5 folk were worked as dupes (sri !).

I did learn my station is functional on 160 meters. Next year I could try an inverted L but I don't know how much things would improve since it would (1) be over a hundred feet of feedline from the shack and (2) would be at the bottom of the slope. So short of adding a tower I don't know what could be done to greatly improve my antenna. Instead, improvements would involve using a computer to do the logging and maybe the sending, or at a minimum exploring an upgrade to my keyer to 2 memories.

A further note, someone with a smaller yard should consider an off-center fed dipole. This could be "shortened" using these two methods in combination as necessary: (1) bending the end to fit into the available space as a horizontal "L" and (2) placing a center loading coil in the longer leg of the dipole. While these have not been tried by myself I suspect they would be workable. In a recent QST article, a sloper was described with loading at the feedpoint to shorten the radiator length. I would think the center loading an off-center fed dipole would be more efficient and hence quite workable. See you on 160 or some other band. 73. WB8YYY