A broken Acom amplifier, 256 QSOs with AN400, a platinum award and a fixed Acom, thanks to Oleg EI7KD

I haven't written a blog post in a while. That's not to say I haven't been busy! Life is always busy here, between family, work, music, photography, writing and all the other stuff that I squeeze in, including amateur radio!

After going through a bit of a summertime lull, my interest in ham radio seemed to hit a severe downer when my Acom 1000 linear amplifier stopped working. However, instead of giving up on HF and DXing, I was instead suddenly spurred into interest by a wonderful and comprehensive awards programme in the form of the Miguel de Cervantes AN400 awards. The AN400 stations were active across all the bands, using lots of modes - SSB, CW, RTTY, PSK63, PSK125 and even some PSK31!

My Miguel de Cervantes (AN400) platinum certificate.

For a couple of weeks I was working AN400 stations one after the other, on various bands and modes, using a maximum of 100 watts due to the inoperable Acom. While some of these QSOs required a fair bit of time and effort because getting through pile-ups with 100w is not as easy as with 400w, some of them were nice and handy. I made several contacts with the Spanish stations on 10m and 12m during fleeting openings. I even managed a few QSOs on top band (160m), which is a hell of a challenge from this QTH using my paltry antenna system.

I soon qualified for the silver and gold awards, but kept going until I had also received the platinum award (pictured). But, seeing how Declan EI6FR was top of the EI table for the number of QSOs, I set my sights on coming in second place, and as the days went by I managed to get further up the table until I was in second place. Then I was overtaken by Seamus EI3KE, but this put the fight on me so I gave it as much time and effort as possible and when the programme ended last Sunday, I had finished in second place (with 256 QSOs) behind my good radio friend and one of my mentors, Declan EI6FR. Hard luck but also well done to Seamus EI3KE on finishing third. There were over 300 EI stations in the AN400 log.

I'm delighted to say that I now have the Acom 1000 back in the shack, fully working, after a quick and expert repair by Oleg EI7KD. Oleg builds linear amplifiers and is a real genius when it comes to diagnosing and repairing such things. As it happens, the GU74b tube had gone. Oleg quickly sourced a (new) replacement and had it working again in a jiffy. I am greatly indebted to him for this repair.

The Acom 1000 linear amplifier back in the shack after repair by EI7KD.

The Acom has helped me work the S9YY Sao Tome dxpedition on a few bands, most significantly 40m (CW), on which I had never worked S9 before. I also put the AT2SL IOTA dxpedition (AS-176) in my log on both 17m RTTY and 20m CW. So thanks again Oleg. I first met Oleg through Thos EI2JD when we did some contesting together with the EI0W contest team in Clogherhead. Oleg is a CW wizard - able to run 40wpm runs in contests, all using the key and not with the aid of the computer. I am in awe of his abilities.

Anyway, I was hoping to track down the T31T Central Kiribati dxpedition as an all-time new one, but so far have been unable to hear them. Fingers crossed......

Video: patience pays off and Brazilian special event call logged

I was listening to a Brazilian special event station, ZZ80PR, on 40 metres tonight. After the crazy European pile-up had died down, I noticed that he was a bit stronger on my Butternut vertical than on my 40m inverted v dipole. So I decided to sit tight and give him a call . . .

Video from the CQWW CW 2012 contest (EI2KC)

This is just a short video showing my operation during the closing stages of the CQWW CW 2012 contest on Sunday evening after 21:00 hours. The band was busy at that stage, because many multi-band ops were coming down there from the higher bands when they closed. Great fun.

CQWW CW 2012 - EI2KC claimed score!

I have just finished my participation in the CQWW CW contest 2012 and I have to report that it was fantastic for me. With just a 26-foot Butternut HF6V multiband vertical antenna, I managed to work 580 QSOs over the course of the weekend on 80 metres alone. I was participating as single band high power assisted on that band. I worked 65 DXCC and 15 zones. I think my zone count could have been a little bit better but I have no regrets with a claimed score of 60,560.

I just checked my log and it turns out I managed to work five new DXCC on 80m during the past 48 hours, bringing my total worked on that band to 123, so I am chuffed with that. I used the N1MM contest logging software and the interface is the CG Antenna SB-2000, which worked flawlessly.

The work I did on the Butternut on Friday paid off. The antenna can be made to resonate on any portion of the 80m band by sliding the 80m coil up and down. With a flat SWR of 1:1 the Acom managed 1,200 watts at one stage with 0 watts reflected.

Saturday evening was quiet on the band, but Sunday evening was a different story! As all the higher bands began to close, with the contest finishing at midnight, the multi band ops found their way down to the low bands, including 80m, where I had significant action at times. I ran a couple of pile-ups during the course of Sunday evening, and at one stage my rate was 88 QSOs per hour. Very nice, especially for this modest station in a small garden in the middle of a housing estate!

Anyway, I hope that those of you who participated enjoyed yourselves. It certainly was a great pleasure for me, and because 80m is generally poor during the day. I was able to spend some time with the family too!!