NØHR is ON-THE-AIR for CQ WW SSB
After years of planning, buying, building, cabling, interfacing and testing, I was finally have an operational ham radio station on the air in a contest once again. Friday night was spent working on the trench for the most part. The coax, control cables (SteppIR and Prosistel Rotor) and extra pull ropes were fed through the PVC ends (above ground) and plumbed into the house.
On Saturday, Duane and I continued to work on cabling and grounding. I pounded 3 ground rods using a borrowed ground rod driver. Eventually, there will probably be 10 ground rods in the 
network connected by solid copper wire and bonded to the tower and house ground.
Dave (KIØQ) came over in the afternoon and finished securing the coax to the tower. He also installed the AlphaDelta DX-B Sloper (for 160m, 80m, 40m and 30m) on the tower at about the 50 ft level. If you click to enlarge the tower picture, you can just barely see the lowband sloper.
I finished building the enclosure for the base of the tower to hold the ICE lightning protection equipment. This box is weatherproof, has built-in cable ports, and a nice door (with a window!). Best of all, it was free. I mounted a sheet of thick aluminum in the enclosure to fasten the surge suppression gear for the coax & rotor cables.
Throughout the weekend I was able to catch a few hours (<4) of the CQWW SSB contest (that’s the CQ magazine World Wide Single-Side Band (or voice) competition). The goal of the CQWW ham radio contest is to work as many ham radio operators as possible within a 48 hour period concentrating on those outside of your geographical zone and country. My personal goal was simply to test drive the new antennas a bit.
I was able to work at least a few stations on each of the major ham radio bands available in the contest.
| Band | QSOs | Points | Countries | Zones |
| 1.8 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| 3.5 | 10 | 22 | 6 | 4 |
| 7 | 20 | 51 | 16 | 12 |
| 14 | 14 | 38 | 11 | 7 |
| 21 | 8 | 22 | 7 | 7 |
| 28 | 9 | 21 | 8 | 3 |
| Total | 63 | 158 | 50 | 35 |
| Score | 13,430 |
Certainly, not a world record - but I was able to meet my goals…
- a few contacts on each band,
- several DX contacts (South Africa, Galapagos Islands, Caribbean, Europe, Gambia, …),
- find out what my antennas would do
- have some fun along the way.