FINAL RESULTS - THIRD ANNUAL STEW PERRY TOP BAND DISTANCE CHALLENGE by the Boring Amateur Radio Club - K7RAT During the first and second running of the Stew Perry Top Band Distance Challenge, we were blessed with extraordinary conditions. Openings like these do not normally occur during a contest. We were prepared to proclaim that W1BB himself was alive in the ionosphere if the next Stew Perry contest had similar conditions. The third running of the Stew found conditions rather tame. Perhaps we should have listened to those who wanted to have the contest on the previous weekend, as December 19th was one of the few nights that Europe could be worked from the west coast of the USA. Had we had a three-peat of the previous conditions, we were ready to certify that Stew was alive and well in the ionosphere somewhere. One of the fun things about this contest is working those stations in far away places and getting 20 or 30 points for it. KH7R was the longest contact for 28 of the logs received. Riki, 4X4NJ was the best DX for 11 of the stations submitting and ZL2JR showed gave out 6 best DX QSOs along with being on the southern end of the two longest QSOs made: G0IVZ for 19008 km and EI7IU for 18666 km. Conditions were not so good for stations like YC0LOW, VK6VZ or ZS5K, or they would have dominated this list. This contest was won by a station running just 5 watts. Congratulations to Jeff, K1ZM. Jeff took advantage of his superior hardware and location to produce the highest score ever from a QRP station in this contest. In fact, the top four scores were all QRP stations - running less power than it takes to light up the nightlight in my kid's bedroom. It seemed that with the reduced conditions and associated activity, the QRPers had their chance as the QRM levels were reduced and people were willing to work hard for another QSO. This year we are happy to announce that certificates are being sent to each of the grid field winners (first two letters of the Grid Sqare). Many thanks to Jim, K1PX, who came up with the idea and implemented it on his own. You should see something from him in the mail sometime before the next contest. Thanks are also due to the 16 people who sponsored plaques. This effort was coordinated by Lew, W7EW. If you haven't paid your $50 yet, Lew will be in touch. There continues to be a lot of excitement about the distance based QSO point calculation. This idea is being tossed around for possible adoption in some of the really big contests. We are all honored by this. Once again, all logs were fully checked using software. If you would like to see how your log was scored, send an e-mail message to k7rat@jzap.com asking for a copy of your report file. The next running of this contest will be moved up a week to avoid conflicting with the Christmas Holiday. This puts it on December 18th and 19th. Hope to see you all then. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PLAQUE WINNERS -------------- Call Category Donor N6RO Top West Coast Score NW6N K1ZM Top Score Worldwide KH8/N5OLS JH4UYB Top Score From Japan N7JW 4X4NJ Top Score From Asia N5IA W3GH Top Score by Op > 50 Years Old K0CKD KH7R Top Score Asia / Oceania N7CL W0AH Top Score > 400 miles from Ocean KJ9C N0TT Top S/O Score in North America Low Band Monitor W8JI Top QSO Total N7NG K2TOP Top MultiOp Score Who's Who on Topband N5UL Top Midwest Low Power Score N0JK W4ZV Top Low Power Score N6TR G0IVZ Top European S/O Score AA4NN NB1B Top East Coast S/O Score Comtek Systems VE3OSZ Top Canadian Score WA2DFI HB9ARF Top 100W European Score K1PX EI7IU Longest 100W QSO K7CA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SCORES ------ Call Grid Pwr Cat QSO Grd Pts Best KM Best DX ---- ---- --- --- --- --- ---- ------- ------- K1ZM FN51 Q S 221 123 3836 8800 4X4NJ N0TT EM29 Q S 208 120 2484 6324 KH7R NB1B FN41 L S 217 132 2104 8940 4X4NJ W3GH FN00 Q S 206 105 2040 7669 KH7R KH7R BL01 H S 157 103 1990 8461 K1ZM W0AH DM78 Q S 143 96 1976 5456 KH7R W8JI EM73 H S 318 198 1847 15519 VK3ZL W4ZV EM95 L S 263 138 1762 7996 HA0DU K1PX FN31 L S 221 121 1496 8139 KH7R N6RO CM98 H S 244 137 1477 14760 VK6VZ K2TOP FN20 H M 290 162 1468 9280 4X4NJ K7NU DM44 L S 171 106 1442 4888 KH7R W0AIH EN44 L S 240 118 1432 6642 KH7R N7GP DM52 L S 170 108 1422 5064 KH7R K1KY EM66 L S 260 130 1414 7979 S57M RW2F KO04 H M 200 128 1393 13411 VK6HD 4X4NJ KM71 H S 162 97 1344 10393 WA4TT G0IVZ IO70 H S 191 135 1321 19008 ZL2JR K4RO EM66 L S 247 120 1320 7053 KH7R VE3OSZ FN25 L S 183 104 1306 7882 KH7R N7JW DM37 H M 257 134 1192 9791 DS4CNB/5 S58A JN86 H S 180 110 1179 8994 JH4UYB N5UL DM82 L S 143 96 1086 5628 KH7R KJ9C EM69 L S 200 110 1070 7869 S58A K4OGG EM73 L S 181 97 1044 7287 KH7R N9JF EM49 L S 172 108 1012 8422 IT9ZGY KE9I EN61 H M 310 161 998 13456 ZL2JR W9RM EN52 L S 185 104 998 3585 WP2/WB9Z JH4UYB PM64 H S 64 53 948 11506 W8JI WB9Z FK77 H S 128 86 939 9923 4X4NJ K3SV FN10 L S 124 82 938 7836 KH7R KG9X EN52 L S 174 97 932 3585 WP2/WB9Z S57M JN76 H S 148 94 920 9108 JH4UYB K6SE DM04 H S 188 118 906 9322 JH4UYB N8AA EN91 L S 189 96 884 7064 RW2F N7IR DM43 Q S 57 47 860 4881 KH7R K4XU CN94 L S 103 73 838 4312 KH7R K8ND EN80 H S 284 136 830 7546 S58A N5LZ EL29 H S 210 120 830 9417 IT9ZGY W7WA CN87 H S 180 105 818 11598 ZL2JR OM5RW JN98 H S 172 117 814 8508 WC4E WD5R EM45 H S 273 135 806 7195 NF0R WA4TT EM82 H S 166 102 792 13241 ZL2JR W7RM CN85 H S 172 106 789 11435 ZL2JR W1FJ FN42 H S 214 118 775 7411 LZ3AB KA2CDJ FN22 L S 107 71 760 9149 4X4NJ K9MA EN53 H S 263 133 756 6807 KH7R OK1DX JN69 H S 171 119 741 13784 VK6HD K4IQ EM97 H S 224 124 738 7838 HA0DU WV9T EN52 L S 139 88 728 2772 NI6T W8TOP EN72 H S 223 122 721 13250 5H3US S50U JN66 H S 163 104 707 9220 JH4UYB HA0DU KN07 H S 142 100 705 13153 VK6HD K5NZ EM20 L S 100 71 698 7462 G0IVZ N3OC FM28 H S 177 107 680 9411 4X4NJ NC7X DN41 L S 104 76 676 4992 KH7R KU7Y DM09 Q S 67 44 664 4281 KH7R W9WI EM66 H S 250 126 661 7053 KH7R K7ON DM32 L S 93 70 660 4688 KH7R AA1SU FN34 L S 124 66 656 6817 HA0DU K6XT DM13 H S 142 94 655 11068 BV4ME N8EA EN82 H S 199 111 646 7395 S58A W1TO FN32 L S 116 64 636 6766 S58A K5KA EM26 L 2 110 74 628 3621 WP2/WB9Z K1KI FN32 H S 117 83 625 8170 RW6BQ EA6ACC JM08 H S 103 79 625 8514 N5LZ K4BAI EM72 L S 121 71 620 3553 W7RM N6LL DM04 H S 132 88 602 9322 JH4UYB WC4E EL88 H S 145 92 590 8508 OM5RW KJ5WX EM46 L S 110 74 584 2893 W7WA N4GU FM06 L S 131 76 578 3013 N7JW VK6VZ OF88 H S 33 20 561 14858 G0IVZ W2SEX FN03 L M 132 70 560 5708 G3SED W9RE EM69 H S 197 111 557 7852 OM5R K7RAT CN85 H M 117 80 553 14693 VK6VZ WA8WV EM98 L S 142 73 544 2713 K7NU AA4NN EM95 H S 197 106 543 7797 S58A KT4ZX EM78 L S 111 72 542 3220 W7WA KT0R EN35 L S 88 64 538 2518 N6LL K8SM EN80 Q S 62 45 520 1861 N2IC K5HP EM15 L S 93 74 514 2530 W7WA K7LFY EM15 H S 155 104 502 10687 JH4UYB OH8LAE KP44 H S 102 73 496 7228 JH4UYB W3CP FM19 L S 98 65 482 7859 KH7R WO1N FN42 H S 123 79 478 8879 4X4NJ N4ROA EM86 Q S 58 49 468 1362 N5LZ NI6T CM97 H S 108 69 459 8977 JH4UYB HB9ARF JN36 L S 78 58 450 7542 W8JI K2UFT EM73 L S 67 51 450 7287 KH7R RW6BQ KN95 H S 85 65 444 11823 VK6HD W1BB FN41 H S 158 84 437 8300 KH7R K5TT EM15 H S 124 89 423 6166 KH7R N0IJ EN36 H S 123 77 421 4120 WP2/WB9Z W8CAR EN81 H S 174 90 403 3237 N6RO N7HV CN84 H M 107 72 394 4241 N8PR W4VQ EL98 H S 104 69 393 8339 S58A N7WA CN87 L S 62 44 372 4322 KH7R AA3B FN20 H S 150 83 365 7046 OM5RW WM9M EM40 L S 54 40 364 3317 W7WA OH2BO KP20 H S 45 40 354 13104 VK6VZ W7ZRC DN13 H S 105 66 342 4572 KH7R VE7VV CN88 L S 50 34 338 4377 KH7R W7EW CN84 H S 70 53 333 8389 JH4UYB N8PR EL96 H S 46 41 327 8555 IT9ZGY GM3POI IO88 H S 77 30 325 13282 VP8CZJ/MM AB1BX FN41 L S 73 47 314 2722 WP2/WB9Z KI9A EM58 H S 120 81 310 3295 WP2/WB9Z K5NA EM10 H S 71 57 305 11114 JH4UYB RV1CC KP50 H S 78 66 298 6970 K2TOP KC7V DM43 H S 68 55 293 9959 JH4UYB VE6JY DO33 H S 69 52 291 3507 K1ZM W3GN FM19 H S 124 76 288 3746 K6SE N7RT EM32 H S 87 67 273 6565 KH7R OK1DRU JO70 H S 79 57 270 13675 VK6HD EI7IU IO63 L S 13 12 258 18666 ZL2JR OH4MFA KP32 L S 34 27 254 3494 4X4NJ PA0MIR JO22 L S 35 30 242 5961 K2TOP W5KI FM29 L S 58 40 238 1878 K0HA WB8IMY FN31 L S 53 37 234 3439 N7JW K0CS DM79 H S 44 39 230 9315 IT9ZGY W6UE DM04 Q S 27 20 228 1502 N5UL KR2Q FN20 L S 52 32 226 5376 G0IVZ K3UA EN90 H S 69 53 224 7664 IT9ZGY OK1CZ JO70 L S 58 46 224 2993 UA9AT G4OGB IO93 L S 37 31 216 2084 OH8LAE VR98BG OL72 H S 34 16 193 5979 VK6VZ N7FF CM97 L S 40 27 192 3277 W8JI K8VT EN82 L S 44 35 192 2608 N7JW VE7ALN CO90 L S 31 23 178 4614 KH7R VO2AC FO83 L S 20 16 172 5171 RW2F LZ3AB KN22 H S 32 24 171 8990 W8JI K0CKD EN41 L S 36 30 170 1939 N7JW W1QS EM95 H S 51 42 166 3684 W7RM 4N800H KN04 L S 33 28 166 6359 VE1ZZ SM7BHM JO76 L S 28 24 156 3181 4X4NJ KD5AIJ EL29 L S 26 23 144 3022 W7RM N8XA EM79 Q S 22 15 144 1480 K5AQ K6CTA CM87 L S 23 20 138 3883 KH7R N6AA DM04 H S 26 23 135 4233 W1BB N1MD FN41 H S 63 41 123 1863 WD5R SM7ATL JO86 L S 23 21 122 2324 EA6ACC SP5CCC KO02 H S 8 8 115 8465 NA5B OE1TKW JN88 H S 53 41 93 2422 4X4NJ LY1DD KO15 L S 17 17 72 1583 RW6BQ N5KB EM12 H S 22 17 64 2270 N6RO JE1SPY PM95 L S 9 9 62 9046 N7JW LY2BTA KO15 L S 15 13 60 1220 S50U G0MTN IO92 L S 11 10 60 1665 HA0DU YC0LOW OI33 L S 2 1 58 13563 K7RAT W7GNP DM33 H S 24 23 57 2640 W8TOP N7LOX CN87 H S 27 16 48 1635 N2IC W9YS EN52 L S 11 10 46 2116 N7JW K2XA FN32 L S 3 3 42 8112 KH7R K6III CM87 L S 10 8 34 1131 K7NU DL2ZAV JO40 H S 11 10 19 992 G0IVZ JH7IMX QM08 L S 7 1 16 570 JK2VOC VE6SW DO21 H S 5 5 14 2400 KE9I JK2VOC PM84 L S 6 6 8 1903 JL1KFR/JD1 SOAPBOX ------- There is a series of lapses in this log....due to the 80+ MPH winds that brought down the inverted L....got it back up, then the RX antennas went, then the L went down again. - EI7IU Sorry i did not work you in the contest. I was only qrv 2hrs!!. My antenna was shorting out to the tower at the top ( the halyard had loosened off and lowered the antenna by 2 feet which i could not see in the dark) in 100mph winds. But I was pleased to work 5H3US and the VP8/MM.- GM3POI See you next year and i hope to have a better antenna. - HB9ARF This is my first attempt to operate this Contest. It was so exciting that I would participate next year again. - JH4UYB Single Operator running 25 watts as the tuning stubs wouldn't allow any more power than this "of all times to blow". If I tried 50 watts the swr went infinite. - K0CKD My 2nd run at this game. This time with low power due to strategy planning and unfinished antenna match. I now have 4 elevated radials on 160M and 3 on 80M, still no matching network at the base. Tuning from shack is 2:1 SWR best case. Was real excited with the QSO count after the first 4 hours with many new grids. Low power on the new antenna seems almost as good as high power on my 80m loop. The windom still wins out west, where I dedicated the IC-735. Interesting comparison with the two antennas confirm the theoretical pattern predix. Once again amazed at the amount of DX achieved with 100 watts, bagging 4 EU in 10 minutes from 04:20 - 04:29. Caught RW2F alone with no takers, while the masses battled over IV3PRK, whom I never was able to crack. Also missed 9A5Y, VY2SS and VE1ZZ. Only missed 3 U.S. calls that I heard, so I must have done a pretty good job cleaning up with the 2nd radio. Ended up with 6 double-digit contacts, with 1-17, 2-16, and single 15, 14 & 13 pointers. My worst fears happened early Sunday morning at 06:55z which is 12:55 a.m. local (and EU sunrise), with a banging noise at the front door - growing more intense every 30 seconds. (I'm in a pretty isolated location with only 1 resident on the same hill) -- Turned out to be a young man and his woman with car trouble..... well, they got it stuck, busted a radiator hose etc... A much longer story goes along with this, but them's the basics. Needless to say, I drove Buck and Cindy-Lou to town to get his car and left them to sort out the rest. 20 minutes lost and EU sunrise history, I get back at it for another hour before stopping for a short nap. The morning wasn't very exciting with only 20 more Q's and no West Coast, JA's or anything over 3 points. Overall, conditions seemed much worse than last year with very little activity heard from 6 & 7 land and very few VE's. Many more good ops are including callsigns with the S&P exchange, which I think should be strongly suggested by all contest sponsors for at least the domestic Q's. Only 6 dupes this time. Once again a fine contest with a great scoring format. I think that just about "cooks" the 1998 contest season for me! Many thanks to all for the Q's, and I hope to get those QSL cards on their way early in '99. - K1KY Heard and workable on my end but they couldn't hear my 100W: RW2F, S58A, S50U, N6RO, K6SE, N7HV. Took a long time to get N2IC to hear me, but I finally bagged Steve. WP2/WB9Z heard me on the first call. Antenna is Inverted V apex at 95 feet. - K4MA Watched score slowly creeping up but not near last year's, although I had more QSOs. Then remembered that score would be multiplied by two! - K4OGG Cool little contest. Wish there was a little more activity. - K4RO High point was working FO0EEN with 100W. Neat format, just not enough participation to warrant busting my ears on the local QRN. Gotta save something for retirement. - K4XU I used the venerable 27 year old Drake C-Line. I still love using that RX. - K5KA Ugh. Big difference from last year! "He who fails to study the results of the past is doomed repeat them". When it came to maximizing score, high-power was a mistake, and one that few others made. Conditions lousy. Only my second contest of 1998, haven't spent much time on the band yet this season, and my brain said "Sleep, stupid" after ten hours of slogging. Heard more DX than I could get to hear me, including DL1YD, EA6ACC, and IV3PRK. Called them in the clear, with no responses. It was nice getting called by YV1NX (even without the grid), and nice to see that I hadn't completely wasted my time putting up the North-South 2-wire Beverage. - K8ND This was my first SP contest. It was fun. - KD5AIJ Thanks for putting on a GREAT, fun contest! - KI9A This is my first serious effort on TBDC. After reading the comments in Jan CQ Contest I was excited enough to look up sunrise/sunset times around the world and made a plan of sorts. Conditions however were not with us and I not only didn't hear EU but only heard a couple of east coasters working EU. My best DX was KH7R. When i first heard him he was under a pileup with the "Pileup Police" trying to direct traffic. He moved down 1 Khz to get out from under and I nailed him first try!! Condx to the west coast were good and gave me lots of 10 and 12 point QSO's. Thanks for coming up with this one. - KJ5WX Catching a bad cold 2 days before the Stew isn't a good idea. Between the cold medication and overall fatigue, my goal was to just SHOW UP! After I got the adrenaline going I decided to try for 1000 points... not much. But first I had to fix the slinky beverage, as I had been hearing nothing from that direction (Europe) all season. The problem was water and corrosion in the Excedrin bottle I used as a toroid box, waaaaay out in the woods. The inverted L was showing 2.5 to 1 SWR, but we had to live with that (funny how your antenna projects get cancelled when you spend most of the fall and December in South America). Activity seemed a bit down from last year (heck, I could find RUN frequencies about anywhere... but nobody to run with).. Europe was there.... Not near as many Europeans worked as last year's contest..where was Clive? Missed F6RWA, 4X4NJ. IT9ZGY called me but a couple of big east coasters jumped on my frequency and blew me away... managed only a handful of DX this year, lots more in 97. Could not stay awake the entire session, but still made more Qs than in 1997. I notice that W9RE is still in Canada. But later in the test Mike must have realized that he was sending the wrong grid square. Now how do you score that? What he sent? Or where he really was? I logged what he sent (more points that way... even if he is really only 8 miles from me). Another SMCer, KE9I, must have gone crazy on his new Northern IN farmstead... he was working everything! Nice going, Jerry. Just as I was ready to pull the plug I heard KH7R calling CQ with no takers. Unfortunately, it was too late here.... no dice. Maybe next year, when the contest is on Christmas Day...Aargh! I guess I'll be there, and the family will have to deal with it. Gonna cost me plenty (in presents) to buy the contesting time. - KJ9C "Casual" operation here, at best. Used 60 watts output (qro for me) to a low dipole (center at 50 feet, ends at 6 -yes, SIX- feet off the deck). Activity seemed down from last year. KR2Q My 1st time in this contest. It was FUN. I now have to look up the grids I worked. - N5KB I really enjoyed the contest! By the way, K7RAT had one of the strongest signals on the band. My total score was only 171 as best as I can calculate it. Ran only a home brew center loaded vertical in the back yard (CCNRs prevent me from having real antennas). Nevertheless, it has been fun hearing and working hams on the Top Band once again.. Previous 160 meter activity of any significance for me was the recent 160 meter DX contest and then it was 40 years earlier on AM! It is good to be back! - N7FF Please note that this is a check log. I decided not to forego the PacketCluster. I did not expect it to assist in the contest--and it did not--but I did not want to miss any DXing opportunities during the boring parts (most of it, hi). That strategy paid off with Minami-Torishima, which I moved from 80 to 160 near the end of the contest--the first NEW ONE this season. (Unfortunately, after badgering him to QSY, I did not have the guts to ask the operator for his gridsquare. - NI6T The contest was joined just before sundown and I began working people at a fair clip. Then the street lights came on. The wife and I took a ride just as dusk and found a light that had just gone on-turned out to be a late riser. Continued cruisin around the Village and lo and behold - the light is on the next street - about 100 yards from my QTH !. So with noise blanker cranked, DSP working and several 807s to keep me calm I proceeded to attempt to work the test. My apoligies to the many stations I asked for repeats - it werent u t'were me. Gave up at about 12 local time due to tireds and thought of working 15 stations an hour for 6 more hours with not a peep from EU up until 0500. Final 177 qsos, 413 points best qso score 7 points, best DX WP2/W and W7RM! It was still fun and look forward to next year - finally starting to understand how to use TR! - W8CAR I tried a new operating location this year. Setup Field Day style in the Peloncillo Mountains about 15 miles SW of my home, across the state line in Arizona. Used the XZ1N tested FT1000mp to a dipole and laid out 4, low, unterminated Bevs for receive. Epson 486-25 laptop running NA 10.24 for logging and a Winbook 486 for GeoClock. A 14' camp trailer was utilized as the shack. Most signals were weak and activity was low. Best east direction Q was WP2/WB9Z. Was called by KH7R more than one hour before his sunset for the best west direction Q. Some VE7s were the farthest north, and nothing to the south. I was dragging after spending all day setting up the operation, so with no stations to keep me going I shut down at 0715 Z and slept the rest of the night. Listened a bit after getting up at 1430, and KH7R was still S-9. All I can say is "It sure wasn't like the last two years!" Thanks, Tree and Lew for a neat, one night contest. Keep it going.- N5IA at N7GP The deployable top hat for the HF2 was changed to an inv-L configuration, tuned & all set to go for the start Saturday evening. JH0BBE was eventually worked, with some difficulty, but that was it for the first night. Sunrise saw some EU being copied - EU, UA2, etc. All were weak & not one heard even a peep of me. Saturday saw the inv-L cut down & an improved deployable top hat rigged up again. With only the 160m radials connected, the antenna again showed reasonably narrow BW & all looked well for the second sunset. Long after sunset, I listened to JK1GKG CQing on 1909 as I cooked dinner. He never got very strong & answered Ws each time I called him. For the heck of it, I went back up on the roof & connected the 30/40/80m radials back up (I figured I'd leave the non-reasonant stuff hanging for a weekend of topband operation) & received signals returned a level I would expect them to be. Guess my 1/4-wave radials for 160 are too far from reasonance (due to coupling into the concrete house on which the HF2 sits) & the eight 1/4-wave radials for 80 (which have decoupling stubs to establish 40m reasonance) are serving double duty as 1/8-wave radials on 160. Perhaps I should dump all but two of the 1/4-wave 160s & deploy more 1/4-wave 80s! With the antenna working again, I could run JAs the second evening. YC0LOW called up in the window when I wasn't listening to my transmit frequency & VK6VZ successfully attracted my attention down there later. N6RO was the only NA heard, with a big signal, but never heard me. A very late Christmas Day party which extended well into Boxing Day once again skewed my sleep rhythm & I managed to sleep right through west coast NA sunrise both evenings. Our Monday morning sunrise saw some SP, OH, LA & other EU stuff in the log after the contest, so the glorified rubber ducky is working & I probably could've bagged some the previous morning if I'd had all the radials connected. - VR98BrettGraham In my opinion, the grid square exchange requirement is what makes the SP test more interesting than others. (I have quite strong opinions about meaningless contest reports, and the two 9's I worked would have noticed I gave them 559 KG50, NOT 599 KG50). My vote would be to keep it an "at the time of contact" requirement. There are very few amateurs who can't phone a friend and ask what those strange exchanges are. - ZS5K Terrible conditions and an uphill battle best describes the view of the 1998 Stew Perry from here. The first night brought only two North American QSOs, in the shape of K7RAT and N6RO (although I think I heard NI6T and W7AWA for a few seconds), plus a handful of Europeans at sunrise (RW2, EK6, HA, G and OH). At best, signals were only S4 - S5. The second evening, conditions into North America were even more dismal than the first night and the only NA contact (I think!) was a VERY scratchy one with W8JI at 1238Z. Luckily, there was at least reasonable propagation into JA, with 25 log entries, plus a couple of Pacific stations - KH2/K4SXT and 3D2DK - and stalwart Brett VR97BG. A special thanks to the blokes in JA who supported the contest well. When I had propagation, there appeared to be a lot of activity in the JA 'window'. Let's hope for better conditions next year. I guess they could not be worse! Vy 73 es HNY to all. - VK6VZ I was again in KP44 for TBDC with HP. Conditions were a shadow from last year. Netted here only 104 q with only 1 JA and 6 NA (tnx VE1ZZ,K2TOP,NB1B,K1KI, K1ZZ and K1ZM). W8JI and many others were heard peaking s7 but no qso. The noise was quite low at my QTH. QSB was strong almost all the time. No sigs of VK's. North latitude paths were sure poor. Heard also 5H3US for hours but no qso. Hope condx dont get even worse next year. - OH8LAE After a QRP effort from K1ZM last year, and a lot of success at reduced power from my home station, I was psyched up for a 100w entry in this one. When the K index hit 5 on Saturday morning, though, it seemed like maybe this was not the year for low power, so Peter WW2Y and I decided to go high power. Made about 300 QSOs, roughly 1500 points. Too bad YV1Nx did not know his grid!. Best Dx to east was once again 4X4NJ, and to the west was KH7R. Couldn't dig VK6VZ out of the line noise. Quite a few of the Europeans were at the noise level but S58A was loud and F6CWA and EA6ACC appeared with very strong sigs. Was so suprised to work a number of Russians and Finns. GM3POI was not as strong as in the past but was consistently present. Did you go low power this time, Clive? - K2WI The Stew Perry contest was a fun event. Thank you Tree and other organizers and all who participated. From here, CN88, signals were weak. I operated this year with 90 watts and worked almost everyone I could hear, so the problem was not hearing very many, although the noise level was as low as it ever is at my city QTH except for periods of rain static. I never heard any W1, W2 or W3's at all, no EU, no VK, no KL7, one JA heard. ZL2JR was strong when I heard him work KH7R, but I never heard him call CQ. The 50 QSO's resulted in 169 QSO points (as scored by the TR program) X 2 for a total of 338 points. W8JI was the standout consistently good "DX" signal here - nice going Tom. - VE7VV (ex VE7FPT) Tks to the sponsers for a real "Topband" contest, Stew would be proud. Not much time to operate, so I used the old IC-701 turned down to 5 watts. Everyone I called answered.....I couldn't believe it. Just not enough time available to operate with holiday duties. Next year 1 Watt, and why not??? Sri to hear there will be conflicts with the "new" type of exchange. Just wait, and all contests will require it. The Grid Square is the most significant exchange we could use for a test of real dx skill. - K0LW Fixed my Yaesu FT1000 12db pad Christmas Eve, fortunately I smoked only the 150 Ohm 1/10w surface mount resistor in the 12db pad section. Since I had the RF unit out, I properly installed the D5/D6 diode pair per Yaesu Tech bulletin TB-9227. These had been previously tacked in by myself (per the tech bulletin, ugly). Saturday I set up the mag loop. Measured less than a watt on its feedline while transmitting. Went through the effort of getting on the web and printing the contest rules. Promptly set them aside and began a 150W effort. About halfway through the contest I see the low power limit is 100W. Dumb and Dumber. Turned it up to 200W at that point. Used CT V9.37 in WPX mode as it did not complain about the grid squares. Got rolling about 2230Z with the first Q with W1BB. How nice! First DX was with S58A those guys had a pipeline to my place and they just got stronger as the night went on. WP2/WB9Z was strong on the Inv L but barely copiable on the mag loop. Worked Clive about 0145Z very weak. Not the usual booming signal. After a couple of hours break came back about 0400Z and worked S57M, IV3PRK, 4X4NJ in succession although it was a good 20min struggle to work Rikki. I got him right at his sunrise I believe. Did a lot of running and had OK1DX, OH2BO and F6CWA check in. Worked the TK/DL7HZ for a new country for me and found RW2F by his lonesome above 1840Khz I believe. Pulled the plug around 0730Z for a few hours shut eye back in the seat about 1115Z to snag KH7R who was right under K1VW (sorry John, couldn't pass him up). Got caught up trying to figure out what the huge pileup was on 1831, only to realize later it was the 3D2 working split. Never did hear him as it was well past sunrise before I figured it out. All in all good fun. My temporary set up seems to be playing better than last years (all of the 160 antenna's are taken down in the spring, what a pain!). DX I heard but could not get them to hear me were EA6ACC and 9A5Y. VP2MHJ didn't seem to know his grid square so didn't log him. Total Q's - 128 in 7 hours. High power/Single Op unassisted. - WO1N First of all I promise I will be active in the next SP Challenge as well. FUN FUN FUN. Although conditions were rather poor, I managed to work 154 Qs, including 15 JAs, 15 W/K (all East Coast), another 8 DX (5B4ADA, 5B4AGC, VE1ZZ, 5H3US-a new one, EK6GC, 4X4NJ, UA9AT, UA0AZ). No score yet, I will download the program soon. By FAR the best DX signal was VE1ZZ (steady 599), followed by JA6HUG, JH4UYB, K2TOP, W8JI and NB1B. Some of the usual big signal holders were only 559-569 (W4ZV, K1ZM, W1FJ, K1KI). Perhaps they were running 100 Watts to have the advantage of the multiplier... Only had one "run" of US stations, between 0450 and 0520 I worked 8 stations in a row, otherwise I had to fight for every DX QSO very hard. Thank you all for this nice experience, God Bless and Happy 1999! - HA0DU Last year Stew smiled on us and we had the best condx I ever experienced in a contest on 160m. I guess Stew decided to make the contest more appropriate to its name this year -- a CHALLENGE! I started at 0100 GMT with high hopes. 60 QSOs in my first hour wasn't too bad, but it rapidly went downhill after that, hi. As far as a challenge goes, the biggest challaenge for me was staying awake in the wee hours fighting the boredom of the poor condx. Twice I fell asleep. I worked all of the DX I heard, which wasn't much -- WP2, KH6, and four JAs. Final high-power score was 191 QSOs, 928 points. Farthest DX was JH4UYB in grid PM64 for 9321.963 km. As a measure of how condx were, last year my average distance per QSO was 4174 km. This year my average was only 2179 km per QSO. I use the following formula: Average distance per QSO = (points / qsos X 500) - 250. - K6SE First of all, THANKS to everyone for hearing my QRP signal! I was not planning on putting any effort this year into this contest. With the noise problem that I've been having I didn't think that I would have a chance. Wasn't too sure about running 5 watts either, what a challenge! I figured that discouragement would set in after about the first dozen q's. I must have had somekind of pipeline Sat night. Didn't get started until 0200z, had family commitments. Was just planning on getting on and handing out some points. Glad that I tried for the 2 hours that I did, hand ALOT of fun! Tried CQing a couple of times, nil response, S&P is the way to go. The 1026 (not advertising, just convinced!) helped with the noise in some cases, didn't always need it. My longest qso was with N2IC, thanks for hanging in there with me! I heard plenty of 7's (W7ZRC, N7JW and others), also heard N6RO and N6FF (nice signals!), but 5 watts wouldn't stretch out far enough. I quit Sat night at 0452z with N8EA. Got up at 1145z Sunday morning hoping to catch those 6's and 7's at my s/r, nil. First qso was with KJ5WX, last one with N5LZ, by the way I called him Sat night several times but he could dig my call out. All I can say is if you have never tried running QRP on topband you havn't met the real challenge yet. The only other QRP qso that I have ever made on topband was with C56DX, W8CAR even worked them with 10 watts. (Remember that one Dan?) THANKS to everyone who organized this contest and I hope to be back next year with less than 5 watts! I would like to know who I worked that was also running QRP, please email me direct. Just one comment to the committee, maybe the QRPers should be in a class to themselves. Happy New Year and CU next year! - K8SM I thoroughly enjoyed a few hours in the SP event again this year despite the contrast with last year's outstanding conditions. Though activity was down, I heard a lot of "non-contesters" with great signals and worked a lot of grids. DJ7AA, G3SED and IT9ZGY kept it from being a "NO-EU" night here, and KH7R heard me on the first call. It was really tough to work the West Coast until about 0430Z, even though many of them were loud. Total damage: 174 Q's, 521 x 2 = 1042 points in about 4 hours. On a related note, I want to thank all who responded to my posting about my "inverted-L-gone-bad". The replies ranged from the scientific to the humorous and all were appreciated! It seems that what I have been doing is coupling to and radiating with the tower as well as from the wire. Changing back to the 8" spacing between wire and tower gave me back my bandwidth (actually, it's 110 khz < 2:1 SWR now!). I sure have a lot to learn here, but golly, AIN'T IT FUN!!!??? - N9JF Hi, everybody topbanders! Yes, Stew Perry '98 has already finished. But how many peoples would like to get good condition that weekend. The Saturday's weather, here in St.Petersburg, North Russia, wasn't good (low atmospere pressure, raining, temp +2 C), but it was the same as one year ago in the last weekend of 1997 year. So I thought Got and Mr. Murphy presented us same propogation as SP'97. Yes the air noise was low, but really condition was very bad. The best QSO was JH4UYB - 15 points. Also worked K2TOP and NB1B (both 14 p.). Heard K1VW but he didn't respons me. The strongest station from NA was K2TOP (I had three contacts only - K2TOP, NB1B and VE1ZZ). Nothing from others US calls area was even heard. Others DX were 4X4NJ, 5B4ADA, EK6GC, UA9AT. The activity from Europe was little bit more than last year, but really SPDC doesn't so popular here as in the USA. I don't know why. May be bad condition made the work last month. As for me in this season I did work only five N.Americans so far - W1ZC, N0TB, K2TOP, NB1B and VE1ZZ (last three in SPDC'98 of course). Yes I can't work every night in the air, I don't have special RX antennas, but I quite active on the TopBand. And my opinion that the propogation to Asia from Eu not too bad now(last two month). What is happen with condition to NA I dont know. Happy New Year to all of You! I wish You to make Your radiodreams real in 1999! - RV1CC Once more, W9RE was giving out the wrong grid square, at least for a while. I understand that he changed his grid square part way through the contest. I don't know how you will cope with that !! In my log I list the grid he gave me, which was early in the contest. So, I hope you won't penalize me in the event that you use his correct grid square in your database. Maybe you should delete QSOs with W9RE from everybody's log and disqualify him for changing his square in the middle of the contest. But, that's probably not in the W1BB spirit ! - VE3OSZ Due to operator error I gave 'EN69' for qso's #1 through #132 after which I gave the correct grid 'EM69'. Sorry, not sure how to correct that error on my part! Tnx to AA9D (who ops VHF) for straightening me out. A few others made a comment about Canada but didn't tell me what grid I was in. The results from last year showed me in EN69 so I guess that was also in error. Nice activity for a new contest, I was going strong until qso # 132 then I pulled out for a while embarrassed for giving out the wrong grid! - W9RE Great fun. Biggest disappointment was the W7 who insisted on getting a grid square from 3D2DK and wasting 7 minutes while the sun was coming up here. - W4VQ The "Stew" was fun this year and worked about every station I could hear. - W7GNP I Know your fast. I Know you want high rates. I know code talks to you. But it don't talk to me. Thanks to TR and CT is the only reliable way for me to send. Please slow down your sending, space your letters so I can copy and i'll give you more points. I'm patient. I'll wait! Bands weren't as good as last year or atleast there wasn't as many operators on maybe they were on the canada contest? TS-820 turned down to 100 watts, into 52 ft vertical with wire el off of top, two beverages , one NW and one NE toward europe, Heard G's and WP, didn't work them. Grids Spot the station a lot closer than states, I like that. - W9YS I had a great time in this my first Stew Perry Contest. Although I did on rair occasion have some trouble gaining the other stations attention with my 100 watts, most of my trouble still remains to be on the receiving end, as can be evidenced by the lack of "DX" stations in my log. Some of the "DX" stations were receive by "ESP" only and couldn't make out their grid. I expect I will try again next year. Thanks to all who organized the contest. - KG9X Thanks for a great contest. I had fun even though conditions were not great. BTW, I was surprised to discover I made almost TWICE the number of SP QSOs this year than I did in 1997!! But, very little DX this year. - N0TT Conditions?? For a while I thought I was back at XZ1N!. Weak signals, not even a HINT of EU. Got better to the Pacific Sunday morning, but still down in the dumps. Participation seemed down - it was real easy to run out of folks to QSO.. I think too many folks gave up too easily "beacuse its not the solar minimum" Come on folks, top band still DOES work when the numbers are over 150, we just have to work a little harder.. but the A of 16 sat eve sure didnt help! Great contest, see everybody next year! - WA6CDR at N6LL Despite poor band condx, had fun anyway. Went for raw points, as this would have been less fun LP or QRP. Occasional power line noise covered some of the QRP/LP callers. Guess I'm in the running for the "Alligator Award". - N6RO Was running on generator power from north Louisiana due to a severe ice storm that knocked out power for 5 days! Therefore, 80 watts to a short vertical in a Sycamore tree and no amplifier. But it was fun.- N7RT Good sigs from JA but I think low activity there. Sigs from State side were very weak - many like EME sigs HI. See you next time in SP! - S57M Nice Contest. I used W1KM's station for the test- a full sized 4 square strung around a 140ft tower in a salt water marsh. The station is located on a peninsula east of New Bedford, Ma, and the path to Europe is over salt water for about 15 miles, then maybe 2 miles over land about the Cape Code Canal, then back to sea water pretty much until Europe. Best DX was 4X4NJ (who was audible here for about 4 hours), next best KH7R and RW6BQ. Never did work a California Station, but was surprised at how much I could work with 100 watts. Looking forward to next year's contest and better conditions than this year. - NB1B Attached is VO2AC.LOG for the 1998 Stew Perry Contest. Summary sheet & comments are below. I really like the scoring in this contest .... the better the DX the better the score. See you from VO2 again next year! (Much more fun than being a VE3 ;=) Nothing serious. I was back home in Labrador for Christmas so I thought I'd play around and see if I could actually work somebody. If you'd seen my antenna, you've have known why .... about 150 feet (at most) of wire strung out the basement window, up the side of the house, across the top, to the neighbours house, and back to the patio wall. At the highest point, it was maybe 25 feet from the ground. Anybody passing between my parents house and the neighbours on snowmobile were lucky not to get caught in the wire! Stongest signals: K2TOP and NB1B Best DX: RW2F and G0IVZ (Actually the ONLY EU DX heard and first DX ever for me from VO2 on 160m) Stations called, but not worked that I can remember: WP2/WB9Z, W9RE, K5NZ I usually had to call several times before I even got a "?". K1KI was the only one to copy my call on the first try. Actually had 2 stations call me. I remember calling K5NZ (?) and getting nowhere fast. K1ZM called me on K5NZ's freq. We worked and I could still hear K5NZ CQing away beneath us. I was surprised to hear RW2F CQing just inside the DX window and nobody calling him. After calling for a few minutes I finally got through and after about 10 minutes we finally got the exchanges. I think he was as surprised to work me as I was to work him. Thanks for sticking with me! - VO2AC Thanks for a good contest. Conditions were down from last year. More contacts, less points. - W1TO Getting used to new FT-1000D, and still need to get new PTT interface working for the TR software which should solve the relay timing problems I had with CT in the past. - 4X4NJ Couldn't work a single JA, even though they were booming in! Propagation was dismal, but the test was still great fun! See you next year! - WA2DFI Fun contest - Other priorities caused me to totally miss ARRL 160 CW test earlier in month and some folks told me band conditions were no good; so I was determined to spend at least a few minutes in my third go at this contest to see about band conditions. Yes, they were softer. What was interesting was that I worked K6SE easily and never heard a beep from Tree. Paths seemed to be quite narrow. Keep scoring and setup as is, please. Thanks again for a fun contest - KA2CDJ Where was last year CONDX? - S58A Ran QRP to mitigate the "Alligator" effect due to the high ambient noise level on the Caltech campus. Conditions way off from last year. - W4EF at W6UE Disappointed that band was not as good as last year. A lot of work digging out the weak ones. Still a fun contest with the Grid Square system. And thanks to Rush W7RM for use of the great antennas. - KI7Y at W7RM