100 countries or entities

in 18 hours.*


DXCC in a day!

with the

Details

All of our antenanns are tested under all sorts of conditions, but the final test for all of my antennas is under realistic, on-the-air conditions. I want to know how an antenna will perform against other stations and all sorts of antennas. The best way to do that is to use the new antenna in a contest were the biggest and best stations are on the air.

I generally use one of three specific criteria:

1. How many countries (entities) can I work in a single weekend.

2 The Sprint - how many countries (entities) can I work in a given number of hours.

3. How many hours will it take to work 100 countries (entities). This means, how long did it take to work DXCC. Of course, this is the time to works the stations. Confirming the contacts is something completely different. Still, it is a good test since you can't confirm a station until you work that station.

Station Equipment  
Transceiver Icom IC-7800 Only one receiver of the 7800 was used to simulate more commonly used transceivers
Linear Amplifier Icom PW-1 running 1000 watts output
Antenna Tuner Automatic tuner in the PW-1
Transmission line 150 feet of standard RG-8X for each antenna
   
Computer Inexpensive HP with quad-core processor. Operating system is VISTA
Video card Low cost card with 512 MB memory capable of driving two HDMI monitors
Rig control interface None
Rig control software None. Rig was controlled and tuned manually
Computer Spotting Aids Several DX and propagation web sites
Logging Software None. Logging was done on paper
   
Operating Event 2011 CQ WWDX SSB contest.
Conditions Conditions were poor. I don't recall the sunspot number but I think it was in the low 20's. I didn't record any of the solar conditions, but they were much better during the week prior to the contest. Band conditions were good enough to work most parts of the world from the east coast, but signal strength of DX stations was modest.
Most Productive Bands 40 and 20 meters
* Results 100 countries or entities in 18 operating hours during the 48 hour contest. 18 hours was to total operating time spread over several time segments. Three or four hours is about all I can handle at a time.
Observation: Anything I could hear or work with the CAROLINA WINDOM® 80, I could work with the CAROLINA WINDOM® 80 Compact with only a couple of exceptions. This was because of the slightly different radiation patterns of the two antennas.

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