Since last year few things have changed. I am one year older, my son ALEX is running for 3 years old (next NOV.) and enjoys more and more the strange sounds coming from the radio in our home.... :-), my wife has taken her ticket for Amateur radio.... As usual, also this year I have enjoyed our beautiful beaches in the South, but as Sartg occurs in this period, Frank also this year has helped me to enjoy it. 

There were also a few changes also on the radio activity site, some more pleasant, other a little less. I don't have a CRYSTAL BALL, but Frank, IK7APK, began to enjoy what last year he defined "things for crazy". Few, but important topics let me hope to get him engaged in our fine contesting world. 
Last year he did not let me operate on the first nights session....but this year, with no need of asking him at all, he soon admitted that for making a good score I would have operate the whole contest. I let you imagine my surprise in earring such a program. 

Well, we soon started checking all the antennas to avoid bitter surprises during the contest, but what last year went discontinuously this year has ceased to function. I intend what could have been great stuff, the 3 el Yagi for 40 meter at more than 100 ft. His 20 year old son climbed the tower and tried fixing the problem. Last year we had thought it was a poor connection, but after having replaced the coax, nothing seemed to change. The more astonishing thing was the high SWR, so high that in 15 years of hamming I had never seen anything like it. With great pain we renounced using it. Also the KT34XA a six el. by KLM showed high SWR on the 20 meter band but avoiding to QSY down below 14.080 we could obtain an acceptable match with his Commander Amplifier. On 40 and 80 meters only wire antennas were used. These also had high SWR, but the VERSA TUNER did its job. The Commander lie on a little table with wheels outside the shack, so we had been forced to pull cables to move it in front of the door so we could see if all went right during operation. I let you imagine how I would have tuned the amplifier from 2 meters away from the radio...hi All cable leakage made things more difficult. We had to use toroids on the keyboard and cables running to and from computer. When the KT34XA beamed south-west toward South America, the beam crosses the house locking the computer. I did not count how many times I pushed the hard reset key on the computer to start again. Sadly a lot of coax was broken in several runs to the watt meter, and after to the tuner, so besides a lot of swimming in the sea this year I could be nominated for the man more RF exposed.... 

Here is a list of all the rig used: 

IC-775 DSP 
Commander 2500 HF 
ANTENNA: 10-15-20: KT34XA (six el.) 
40 : VERTICAL DELTA LOOP 
80 : HALF SLOPER (ALPHA DELTA) 
40 RX : 40M3L (by M2) (due to high ROS) 
COMPUTER: P-5 at 100 Mhz 
WF1B 3.0f / RITTY 2.11 

The always more famous combo RTTY/RITTY this year has been a nightmare for me. Please, don't misunderstand me. I love it. I began contesting on Rtty seriously when this became available, but when a system composed by 2 elements are made from different hands, sometimes at first, some problems could arise. The worst in my opinion had been the "serial number jumping". Here RTTY 3.1a/RITTY 2.12 refused to work so it was a must to go to previous versions. Foolishly I had wiped them from my HD, so a few minutes before the contest started I was in high sea with no hope at all. And here I would like to deeply thank ON4ANT and VE3QW for offering themselves to send me as an attachment to an E-mail message the previous versions. It missed by 20 minutes the shot of the gun...I never remember a more crazy run with my car to go back to my parents home to turn on my computer and connect the net. Sadly my wait at home lasted 30 minutes, but for a reason I probably shall never know, those Mails arrived on my provider the next morning. Luckily when connected to the net, checking nervously every 2 minutes for new mail I began surfing my HD. It's useless here speaking about my loud shout when, in a RTTY.ARJ file I found all the directory content with the so much looked for versions. In a few minutes I was back to Frank's home and at 0055 YU7YG was my first qso. All the rest has been a long run, with very good rates at some moments. 

Frank had remained chattering with me till 0200 in the morning, and even if he never wanted to touch the mouse his interest in what I was doing was clearly evident. The food he offered me at lunch hour has been great: local cuisine and almost a 1/2 oz. of red wine made things even more pleasant...hi (the wine was so red that if you'd put a light on the other side of the glass, it never would cross the wine....). All the 10 USA call areas had been worked on 20 but not one VK heard in all the contest. Practically speaking, this year I have less than double the score of the 1996 edition. 

Last minute highlight: his son has climbed the tower again, dismantled the balun and found it in a very bad manner. It has been remade, so next year the chances to be on the air with the 40 meter Yagi are very reasonable.

A great thanks to Frank and his wife for having kindly offered me for the second year the pleasure of working all of you. Always to Ray for the quick delivery of a new password for RTTY. Qsl's, of course, will be mailed as last year via Bureau. 

My prayer has always been the same: Please send your card to Frank. This event has been possible due to the pleasure Frank has had in receiving a lot of cards. Below there is the summary sheet and some pictures taken on his antenna farm. By me...see all you again .... 

ciao Sante, IK0HBN
 
 
 
 
 

"I have observed all competition rules as well as all regulations established for amateur radio in my country. My report is correct and true to the best of my knowledge. I agree to be bound by the decisions of the Awards Committee." 

Date 25 Aug. 1997 Signature Sante Lillo, IK0HBN 

Francesco Petrosillo IK7APK 
SP Alberobello, 155 
Castellana Grotte, 70013