Once more into the fray! This weekend I entered the IARU HF Championships. I entered as low power (100 watts) CW only. On all bands except 15 meters I ran verticals. On 15 I set up my moxon and pointed it toward Europe early in the day and toward Australia and Japan late in the day. Things worked well.
I did take quite a few breaks and only got on the air 11 hours out of the 24 allowed. One of my breaks was to watch the third place World Cup match. Another was to sleep. After a long day I just didn’t have it in me to dig out signals on 40 and 80 through the noise.
Overall, I made 265 QSOs with a total of 47 zones and 52 HQ stations. I also managed to work a few of the 1×1 calls from the WRTC. They were fairly weak here in Texas. One of my highlights was working quite a few HQ stations. I also managed to get up early this morning and get a couple of JA’s on 40 meters as well as a V31 on 80 meters.
It looks like I’m going to retire the moxon this weekend. It works reasonably well, but the set up and tear down have been rough on the wood and the fish poles. I’ve rebuilt and repaired it a few times. Plus, we’re currently in the mood for cleaning our home of all the stuff we’ve accumulated over the years. So, unless I have a change of heart, it will be retired.
I’ll further note that my contesting activities are more and more focused on domestic contests. I’m in a good position in the center of the USA. Plus, I’ve begun to explore 6 meter activity. I’ll be attending the Central States VHF Conference in Austin later this month. Following that, I’ll be taking some steps with antennas to get more into working grid squares. This, too, had an impact on my decision to retire the moxon. However, I am looking at a 6 meter moxon as a good choice for VHF contests!
Hope you had fun on the IARU HF Championships. I’m looking forward to seeing who won the WRTC.
