Since I have never owned a killerwatt, I was tempted to see how
the other half, OK, how the other 99.6% live. I visited a serious
contest station that had six individual operating positions, each
with their own Henry 3 KW PEP amp. The antennas were not too shabby
either.
It was interesting. I swear we were creating our own ionosphere.
We openned 10 meters to Japan by brute force with a 28 Mhz signal
out of 10 element beam that must have been knocking birds out of
the sky in a stupor!
Contesting at this level is a special interest. The station certainly
was the king of the hill. I am anxious to see how they placed in the
contest. The call was KH7R and they certainly were able to load the
legal limit on every band from 10 to 80 with 160 being added.
The requirement here was endurance, speed, creating and then working
pileups, being able to computer log and operate at the same time as
fast as possible.
It was about as far from QRP as you can get. The person who said QRP
operating is a sport, is certainly correct. Every line I add to the log
is a victory. It was great fun to experience the opposite end of the
spectrum with maximum QRO. Still, I was back fighting the lanai antenna
on Saturday and managed to net another 20 meter contact with my 5 watts.
I am making good progress on the kite antennas and awaiting the SLV's.
I even found a 26 foot version of the collapsible fishing pole, very
similar to the ones described for the SLV, but a full $54!
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