I am proud to announce that SEØX was presented with an award for second place among Swedish SO-HP contestants in the CQ WW 160 Meter DX Contest 2009. SEØX was also announced the Swedish winner of the ARRL 160 meter Contest in the SO-HP category, although SM participation was limited in this contest.
Those awards certainly inspires to a bigger effort in the upcoming 160-Meter contests.
Visit the virtual wall of awards at SEØX here.
The past weekend’s major contest event, CQWW SSB 2009, charged all bands with activity (plus QRM) and put gear and operators to the test. SEØX was active in SOAB-HP operated by me, SMØMDG, and it was indeed a fun weekend with very little sleep.
Just in time for the contest the SEØX Topband vertical had been upgraded and this in combination with decent openings on higher bands a few days before the event raised my expectations to the maximun.
Saturday provided lots of action on 10 meters with some nice DXCCs logged including HS, 9M6, UN, A7, 4X, 4L, YC, 9K2, ZS, 3DA, CN, 6V, 6W and PY. Later Saturday night I had a fine run on 160 meters logging 221 contacts non-stop at a rate of 105 per hour in heavy QRM, which propelled Topband to the second most active band. On Sunday it was 15 meter’s turn to shine, it really became “the new 20” with a fantastic opening to NA after midday. As always, 20 meters provided the biggest number of contacts, but this time it was 15 meter where the most countries where worked.
CQWW SSB 2009 Score Card
At the end of the contest I had been active for 35 hours logging almost 2.000 contacts (including a hand full of dupes), 353 countries and 95 Zones, resulting in a claimed score of 1.240.960 points. The average rate was 56 contacts per hour.
I am already looking forward to CQWW CW November 28-29.
73 de Björn, SMØMDG
A little late into the Topband season the new inverted L has been installed at SEØX, just in time for the CQWW SSB contest.
Toband inverted L at SEØX
The vertical part of the inverted L stands 19 meter tall. The bottom 13 meters are made of 50, 45 and 40 mm aluminium pipe and the top part is four sections of an old Spiderbeam pole. The new vertical uses the old radial system consisting of two raised and bent radials following the shoreline. An unun is used to transform the 22 ohm impedance to 50 ohm and a RF choke is placed at the antenna to reduce HF in the coax shield. The 2:1 SWR bandwith is around 30 kHz.
Update Jan 29, 2010: The first construction of this antenna did not survive the the winter storms, and the antenna had to be repaired. The photo shows the repaired antenna.
SEØX will be active in CQWW SSB this weekend. SMØMDG Björn will be competing in the Single Operator High All Band category. A new 160 meter vertical antenna is ready for action and the 10 meter band has been open the past days, so expect to log me on all bands.
CU in the Contest!
73 de Björn
The SteppIR 3-element yagi at SEØX has never worked well on 6 meters because of high SWR, more than 2:1 over the whole band. Someone suggested that adding the parasitic element might solve the problem. I had to bring the antenna down for replacement of the dipole EHU recently which provided a good opportunity to add the parasitic element.
Adding the element was the key to solving the SWR problem on 6 meter, and now SWR is close to nothing on the DX part of the band.
SteppIR 6 meter homebrew element
The parasitic element was simple to assemble and it took me about 2 hours to complete it, it was built using the measurements from the SteppIR installation manual.
The total lenght of the element is 2.867 mm and it is divided into three parts; one centre section 1.485 mm long made of 12 mm diameter aluminium tubing and two tips made of 800 mm long 10mm diameter tubes. The tips should extend exactly 691 mm from the ends of the center tube.
The element was attached to the SteppIR boom between the dipole and director, exactly 794 mm from the centre of the dipole to the centre of the parasitic element.
This has been a A simple and low cost project to make the 3-element SteppIR functional at 6 meter, now back to the operating shack!
73 de Björn, SMØMDG
The second part, the SSB portion of the SAC (Scandinavian Activity Contest) 2009 has ended. SM ØMDG operated SEØX in the SOAB-HP category logging a total of 1.000 stations in 20 hours of operation.
There was no opening at all on 10 meter but there were many fun contacts made on all other bands including some really nice DX on 40 and 80 meter and a few good openings on 15 meter. As usual 20 meter contributed to the biggest number of points thanks to lot of activity and many multipliers available, but also 40 meter had a lot of multiples in store compared to last weekend.
SAC SSB 2009 Score Card
The claimed score is 376 488 points and you can see how this compare with others at the brand new official SAC website at www.sactest.net.
Thanks to the organisers for a fun contest!
For the second time the 3-element SteppIR antenna at SEØX failed, this time with terrible timing a few days before the SAC SSB Contest. First I expected the failure to be similar to when the antenna copper tape jammed inside the EUH the past winter. Friday night, less than 20 hours before the start of the contest, we took the tower down and opened up the dipole EHU to find the drive shaft broken. Accepting the fact that the SteppIR would be grounded for the contest, I started to think about alternative antennas but possible replacement antennas would never provide a signal similar to the SteppIR so instead I re-focused my thoughts on how to temporarily repair the EHU. Looking closer at the shaft assembly I realized that the plastic shaft had not entirely broke into parts, it was actually still sitting on motor shaft but not able to move as it had broken where the lock pin is attached. With glue and cable ties I was able to fix the platsic shaft in place and hold it tight, so that the mechanism worked as intended (see photos).
Broken SteppIR shaft before repair
Fixed SteppIR shaft after repair
With just a few hours left to start of the SAC contest, this was encouraging progress and a test run on the floor confirmed that it worked fine. But having the shaft stay in one piece with the tapes running in glassfiber pipes rocking back and forth in the wind is another thing. The dipole was assembled on the antenna, and the tower went up in the air again. A test run confirmed the tapes where moving as intended and SWR readings where similar to before the breakdown.
Happy to have a working SteppIR I put the station on air and worked around 1000 contacts in the contest without the shaft failing on me, most contacts on 20 meter but with several band switches between 20, 15 and 10 meters and heavy use of the 180/Bi-dir functionality during the runs. Suspecting that the calibration procedure would put extra pressure on the shaft, I did not dare to calibrate the antenna during the contest.
A refurbished EHU is now on its way to Stockholm to replace the one with the broken shaft, so hopefully this will be the last time the SteppIR have to be repaired the morning of a contest.
SEØX was active in SAC CW this weekend. SM ØMDG operated the station in SOAB-HP logging a total of 1.100 stations in 20 hours of operation.
Propagation was weak in higher bands with just a small opening Sunday on 15 meter and only four contacts logged 10 meter. Lower bands provided good action overnight with DX from NA, SA and AS on both 40 and 80 meter. 40 meter was the band with most contacts logged, but 20 meter contributed most to the 153 multipliers collected.
SAC CW 2009 Score Card
The claimed score is 392 751 points and you can see how this compare with others at the brand new official SAC website at www.sactest.net.
This upcoming weekend, September 26-27, SEØX will compete in the SSB portion of the SAC Contest. CU in the QRM!
51st SAC Contest 2009
The 51st SAC – Scandinavian Acitivity Contest is the next major event for Polar DX and the team is gearing up and preparing for the two contest weekends.
The following Polar DX team members will be taking part in SAC;
The goal will be to beat last year’s result of SEØX who finished fifth SM in SSB and fifteenth SM in CW. For more information about the 51st Scandinavian Activity Contest visit go to the SAC promotion website.
73, GL in the SAC Contest!
SEØX was active in the IARU Contest this past weekend operated by SMØMDG Björn in the Single Operator SSB High Power category.
Most contacts where made on 20 meter but 15 and 10 where also open and 10 meter provided the second most number of contacts of all bands in the contest. No transmit antenna where available for 160 meters and only one RX antenna reamins up in summer, so most of the effort where made on higher bands in daylight with a 5.5 hour break overnight.
Propagation was decent on 20 meters with DX from AS, SA and NA coming in strong. Also on 40 some DX from SA and NA appeared together with UA9 stations. On 15 meters there where some sporadic DX from SA and AF and on 10 meter it was a strong Es opening on Sunday morning providing for a good QSO rate mostly from EU.
A total of 945 stations, 110 sections and 67 zones where logged excluding dupes. The end result after 16 hours and 45 minutes of operating was a claimed score of 547.155 points.
Equipment used in the IARU contest was a K3, 1 KW power, 3 element SteppIR, wire antennas for low bands and N1MM contest logger.
73 de Björn, SMØMDG