I worked the 2023 CQ WPX contest this weekend as single operator QRP. I used the EFHW vertical beam on 15m and 10m with some activity on 40m and 20m using the S9V31 vertical. I started with the beam pointed just East of North on 15m. Propagation conditions were interesting as we had just come off a strong geomagnetic storm. 20M was very noisy and it seems that most activity was centered around 15m and 10m which fell in line quite nicely with my antenna plans. I worked QRP on this contest ion 2019 and 2020 and closed about 50 QSO’s with scored just under 5,000. This weekend I worked 106 stations across 26 countries and 86 unique prefixes for a claimed score of 15,824. Here are some charts regarding the contest performance:
Most all of the contacts were made on 15m and 10m. I would point the antenna East of North early in the day and then switch to more Southerly and then more Westerly directions during the course of the day. Changes take less than 5 minutes to implement. I think that the antenna is a winner. There are just a few improvements I’d like to make:
Replace the hysical links with traps to simplify band changes.
Pre-deploy additional mast stakes to simplify moving the reflector element.
See if I can replace the adjustable matchbox with a fixed one for operation only on 15m and 10m bands.
Predicated gain is about 4dBi which is considerably better than a plain vertical and provides good low level radiation. I tested directionality by switching between the S9V31 vertical on stations facing away from the beam. I should note that trying to make contacts with just the vertical was difficult. This antenna might end up being an interesting choice for field day this year as domestic contacts were not difficult to close.
Now that 15m and 10m are open once again, I have been looking at ways to get some low angle gain on these bands in a portable setup. The 15m Moxon works great but my setup is a hassle in high winds. I pulled out the EFHW matchbox I have built and tested previously and set it up for 15m with a carbon fiber fishing pole as a mast.
That was a mistake.
It turns out that the carbon fiber poles served to hopeless detune the antenna. This problem went away when I replaced the mast with Fiberglass poles. My first attempt failed as the poles were too short. I ended up using the two travel SOTA poles that extend to 10m. That fixed the tuning issue on 15m. Once the driven element was setup, I placed a second pole with just a wire about 6 inches longer than the driven element about 6-1/2 ft away and pointed into the Northeast. SWR was below 1:2 across the band. I then setup the IC-705 and started trying to work stations on 15m. Note that this setup requires no radials! The driven element has a counterpoise about 1m long and a 1:1 choke at the feed point.
I made 5 QSO’s on SSB 5W all into the US Northeast. I even had one rag chew with a station in New Hampshire with no difficulty in copying on either side. During this time, I heard no stations west of Illinois or south of Cuba. All in all a promising antenna for field work on the higher bands.
After a full 24 hrs, WSPR results were somewhat mixed. The antenna performed very well per WSPR challenge results with 137 unique spots. This was good enough to score in the top third on the board. There was no clear indication that the antenna was more directional. The spot maps were almost identical to those done before.
Overall the antenna performs well. I’ll need to do some additional testing on the beam performance but this may have to wait as weather is changing. The South Texas wind machine is cranking up.
Adventures in Amateur Radio 