This coming weekend: UBA DX Contest, the CW Part. Plan: enter 12h category HP like last year. I’ve won that one too last year just like the SSB leg so I hope for a repeat. The urge is gone after taking a good shot of CW last weekend in ARRL DX CW. I’m not really looking out to setting everything up once again. I want to do SO2R so I’ll need to deploy the vertical vor 10/15/20 too.
The latest issue of the ARRL’s biweekly newsletter Contest Rate Sheet mentioned K6MM’s QSL card collection and guess what? My OO5ZO card is on display under the ON DXCC listing! Nice to see that all those cards we send out sometimes serve a higher purpose than just sitting in a box.
I noticed NN4ZZ has made his tilt plate commercially available. That is a GREAT tool for people like me with a tilt over tower. It makes the beam rotate when the tower is being tilted so that the element always remain parallel to the ground in stead of hitting the ground and penetrate the soil. I face that problem too, especially with the KLM (10m boom) I had before the Optibeam (6m boom). What strikes me is the retail price: 750 US $. Now if you put up an expensive tower with a precious yagi this might be a relatively small surplus amount but still a lot of money. On the other hand: quality parts and labor don’t come cheap.
My friend ON4CCP / OT1A has the same tower as I have and he also had a KLM and he used a basic version of this principle. We came across the plans NN4ZZ displayed on his site (early 2005) and I showed them to my dad, who is a retired craftsman and all-round handyman. I made a drawing with the right dimensions, went shopping for parts and a couple of retired afternoons later, I had my own ‘bomb proof’ tilt over plate. It has served me well but I didn’t install it on the Optibeam yagi since I needed to adapt the plate to fit the square boom. Here’s what my dad’s model looked like.
The results for the IARU 2007 contest are published on the ARRL website. This edition was my personal best so far topping 2000 QSOs in 24h. It was big fun and I was very satisfied with that result. However, it doesn’t even bring me into the top 10 box. Only a 14th position. Nevertheless I am still happy with the result and I’m in good company.