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As the 2009 CQ WW DX SSB Contest arrives, it seems safe to say that if your antenna system and shack are about the same as a year ago, then others might well have been gaining on you in the race for ham radio contest supremacy.
For example, take Team K3LR, the Multi-Multi crew run by the owner of that callsign, Tim Duffy.
A year ago, the upgrades included receive antennas on 160, enhanced 40 meter beams, better four squares, new antennas on 10 meters and more.
That helped lead K3LR to a World victory in Multi-Multi in 2008. So what's different for this year?
"Lots of incremental improvements," Duffy told radio-sport.net.
Those include:
To the West of K3LR, Mike Wetzel W9RE concentrated in recent months on incremental items as well, trying to improve his station organization, while also repairing some antennas.
"I did pick up the ability to use my 80 meter 2 element yagi in the segment 3600-3750 that I didn't have before," said Wetzel.
Wetzel also did a lot of digging outside his Indiana home, as he took dissipation radials, feedlines and control wiring and put it all underground from his shack to his five different towers.
"That was 900 feet of conduit, 4500 feet of hardline and 6400 feet of control cable," Wetzel told radio-sport.net.
"What made this difficult was about 6 buried utility lines right near where my underground was passing so we had to dig with wood sticks to avoid existing cables," Wetzel added.
Across the Atlantic in Zone 15, it was a Summer of upgrades for Ranko Boca 4O3A, who will host ES5TV during CQ WW SSB.
Boca has spent months fixing up his antennas and his shack to further improve his chances in big contests like CQ WW.
"Station is finally ready for 2009/2010 contest season," Boca told radio-sport.net.
Above is a photo of the new and improved 4O3A shack.
You can see more of Ranko's work at the 4O3A web site.
