Monday, August 31, 2015

Pursuit of 5BDXCC III - 80m

I wrote of this dream first two years ago. Back then, I thought it would be an easy thing, perhaps to work (and confirm) nearly 30 countries on 80m in a single winter. Boy, was I naive. I only added six confirmations on 80m the entire year.
Can this shunt-fed tower put me over the top?
The next  year, I at least had the sense to understand the difficulty of the proposition. I enumerated things I might do that year. In the end, I only did a couple of them. I did not add more radials to the Inverted-L, I did not bring the amplifier up to Floyd county, I never did finish the new K9AY controller. 

However, I was there a lot. I spent a lot of time on 80m. As a result, I now stand at 89/88 confirmations - I added a dozen over the year. That's twice as productive as the previous year. 

If I can pull it off again this year with a dozen confirmations, I should be able to meet all the requirements of 5BDXCC.

It's going to be interesting. At the moment, the Inverted L, with over 30 lbs of radials, is sitting in a box. I'm still trying to figure out if I can put it somewhere where I can lay down those radials safely. My only 80m DX antenna is the shunt-fed tower in Gwinnett county. 

Wish me luck.


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