FALL 432 SPRINT 2015
 SINGLE OPERATOR CATEGORY (hilltop portable FN22)








ANTENNA SYSTEM









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