I decided to spend a little time tonight working the 160m contest. To be honest I
did not even know that it started tonight until I saw an email from N0FP.

I have not retuned my 160m shunt on the HF tower since I replaced my HF beam this
fall. My top hat is quite a bit smaller now which means my SWR that used to be about
1.4:1 is now about 4:1. I tried to retune the shunt in the dark but it was just too
cold to mess around for very long. I ended up putting an antenna tuner at the base
of the tower in a large plastic "tupperware like" box to keep it dry. (We have a major
winter snow storm coming tomorrow.) It was not the best looking solution but it made
my radio happy and I got on the air and made some contacts.

I did not have a massive showing tonight but I was able to Search & Pounce at
a rate slightly better than 1 QSO a minute. Considering that I am not a CW operator
that is not a bad rate.

Screen shot of Writelog during night one of the 2007 ARRL 160m contest.

73 de NG0R