CQWW SSB 2016 SOAB HP - VU2XE

It is that time of the year when Hams around the globe warmup and charge ionosphere to create their own Propagation Conditions. And this is Year 2016 with downward Solar trend. Let us enjoy every bit which is there to offer by Sun god!

 

Preparations:

Often it is told that test results are only as good as its preparation. And such preparations can run for years together and certainly in my case it was. 

Few major things i had aimed for last year were:

1. License upgrade (read my blog on upgrade advantage in VU )

2. Better Antenna

3. Decent amplifier

I am fortunate enough to accomplish these key goals for my hobby this year starting first with my call sign from VU3KPL to VU2XE as general (advanced) license grade, then upgrade Hexbeam to Spiderbeam and finally getting W6PQL amplifier project working. Here is my journey for you to enjoy!

License upgrade:

As soon as i decided to upgrade my station last year around August (probably pondering over it for couple of years), other than taking upgrade exams, I started researching about amplifiers. Though i reside in Bangalore, my affection towards my hometown Mangalore and its friendly people drove me to take exams from the same monitoring station that took my first license exam during year 1995-97. With great help of ham friends, i appeared for the exam and completed first hurdle required in last week of October 2015. Thanks to VU2MTT, VU2NXM and lot others who helped me with preparation of the exams, which not only included 12WPM CW, but recently some advanced topics in rules. Numerous followups to WPC wing at Delhi resulted in upgrade granted by mid of this year. I must say VU2XE was not my choice. I had requested them to provide 2 letter callsigns because of my contest interests. Though two letter request was honored, my choice of letters were not. I am getting used to it and it sounds nice.. hi hi!

Amplifier:

Around the same time, I got to know about W6PQL (Jim) amplifier kit. Though there were less expensive options were available, i took this project because of exhaustive information shared by Jim and upcoming popularity of LDMOS. It not only was expected to put me on air with HP category but also help me to refresh my EE skills and put that in practice. I must admit that it was real journey since then. Building each bit of the project such as sourcing components, putting together home lab for assembling and testing itself became year long fun activity. It was more than melting solder to parts and screwing things down. At each stage, understanding RF concepts and testing them for perfection became addiction along the way. And that means, building/buying testing equipments as well. In VU, our legal power for advanced or general grade is 400W and this amplifier could deliver three times of that power. Working carefully with continuous remote guidance became vital aspect. Thanks to Jim, who responded almost as if he is in VU time zone most of the time!. 

Me working at apartment balcony converted as lab ?!

Mouser and element14 became regularly visited for quality components along with local S.P road electronic shops in Bangalore. Project's enclosure came from a lab equipment enclosure dealer in Mumbai who supplied extruded aluminum chassis. Later learnt that similar 3U/4U type of chassis could have been bought at local computer supply dealers. Jim had also mentioned 2D design of front and back plates of the amplifier. In absence of online laser cut firms such as Front Panel Express mentioned by Jim, I had to design my own version of the plates and get it cut at local laser cutting shop. For me, I live just next to Bangalore's biggest Industrial estate- Peenya. Where world class electronic and mechanical industries have their shops. 

Clockwise - Kevin W9CF, Lee KY7M, Andy NY7N, Bob K8IA, 
Kiran VU3KPL, Mike KC7V, Ned AA7A, Gary N7IR

Again nothing is cheap when it comes to quality. In Feb/March 16, I got opportunity to visit Arizona, USA for my morning QTH activity. I happened to chat with Jim on phone. What a pleasure talking to him. Hams around the world share common spirit of designing, building and having fun on air. During the same time, I got acquainted with K8IA Bob and Arizona Outlaws Contest Club. A fine group of Contesters, DXers and DXpeditioners such as this is inspiration for any ham. It gave me my first hand walk-in experience to multi-two contest site of theirs at Bob's residence near Phoenix AZ during a contest.

LDMOS Amplifier ready for integrated testing!

Returning back to home country, a lot of solder flow and drill work later, finally during September 16, the amplifier got into the enclosure box. And by now it was time to perform smoke test without causing smoke out of any parts hi hi!. Fortunately all worked, except for readings on Forward and reverse LED graphs. This may be cause of first time RF assembler mistake such as wiring in the enclosure etc. However, this troubleshooting continues as we go here..

Just a week before the contest, I had tripped my SMPS 800RE (800W DC SMPS supply from Connex Electronics) without understanding RFI issues and damaged it. Panic stuck me ordered used ESP120 ( HP Blade server''s PSU) locally and this time I placed toroids at input DC power lines just in case issues continued. This beast supply (OEM spec'ed at whopping 2930Watts!) has personality of its own with booming fan sound in the background and not even a drop in voltage providing adequate juice required for CQWW without a blink! 

This amplifier setup played awesome role in my 15m and 10m run this time pushing VU legal limits without any hiccups. Though 20m had problems due to higher SWR which on second day i resolved using loaned MFJ tuner limited to 200W out.

Boy.... being first time beyond 50W level, it is surely a adrenaline rush when stations lineup for you!

Just joy to say Five Nine TwoTwo :)./ with your own handmade amp talking hi hi..

Antenna and Propagation:

Spiderbeam around 15ft above my Apartment terrace (140ft)

In April-May this year, i took down my homebrewed Hexbeam and cut its spreaders for shaping it as Spiderbeam. Within a week, early Monsoon rain and winds fractured its spreaders. The spreaders i used were local and holding good for my Hexbeam earlier due to its mechanical structure. However with Spider, wing span takes special attention for sure. Ordered Spiderbeam spreaders from Germany and finally new structure was made ready when still a month to go for CQWW. This definitely adds 2Db over my hex (is it 1/2 S Unit?)

Antenna proved its goodness for sure with lot of JAs in our local mornings worked and EUs in the rest of the time.

Propagation stayed erratic. With major storm passing (Flux 79, A 26 and K 4), it was not expected to be great contest time. There was no hope on higher bands, but then 20m also closed just while after 10PM local (16:30 UTC). 40 and 80 would have been the good bands, however, i had recently downed my OCF dipole for LMR cable to connector issues. No sweat there, probably it is due for CQWW CW. 

Summary:

For me, these contests  are a big inspiration and drivers to improvise the station and my knowledge. I scored 600+ Qs for the first time on SSB and definitely it is not near to any VU HP marks. However, I earned a lot of knowledge in the process of working them. All these years I stayed below 50W level and worked the world and had admiration for those big guns with sensitive ears. Now I started developing even further respect to their work on preparations.

There were not many wow moments this time working Caribbean and South America  from here. Each QSO out of my brewed amp was a like a Diwali gift to me :). One YO station greeted me "Namaste, Happy Diwali Kiran! you are 59 ..". Thank you dear - truly, it is our largest festival time here in India and I enjoyed every bit of this contest while overlooking Fireworks from my apartment window at night!. 

Couple of QSOorder recordings are embedded here for your interest. Check how my station hears you! 

Clipping from one of the best EU run i had 128 Q/hr with 300-350W on 21Mhz. Though lived short, it really made me happy!

Listen to following snip from K3LR QSO. He picks me up in clear one shot! No wonder 250 watts works better on 20m than 50W i used to earlier. These big gun stations are beacons for us over the pole :) 



Here is finally score from N1MM software:
 Band     QSOs     Pts  ZN   Cty  Pt/Q
    14     143     400   16   43   2.8
    21     371     970   21   76   2.6
    28      92     168   10   25   1.8
 Total     606    1538   47  144   2.5

Score: 2,93,758

Looking forward for CQWW CW in November!
Cheers

Kiran

Update 7th Nov 2016: Just an update on the LED BarGraph reading related issue. It got resolved on 6th Nov finally. I will write a short blogpost soon on this troubleshooting exercise and with Arduino sketch of the project etc.