Spent a bit of time dabbling in the ARRL DX (SSB) contest this past weekend using the 10m dipole in the attic. In the process, I also discovered that the 30 or so meters of coax running from the shack to the outside, coiled up and hanging on the side of the house, also receives on 10m although not very well.
I was tuning around the band, hearing a few intelligible but faint signals, when I realized I had the radio on the wrong antenna input. When I switched over to the antenna input the 10m attic dipole was connected to, everything got much much louder.
I was hearing lots of DX activity on the band over the weekend. Most of my contacts ended up being on Sunday morning when I managed to work a few EU stations. Tuning around the band and working a few stations in between doing other things got me a total of 14 QSOs.
Not bad for a couple pieces of wire hanging from the rafters. Now I know the dipole works reasonably well.
Contest: ARRLDXSSB
Band QSOs Pts Cty Pt/Q
28 14 42 14 3.0
Total 14 42 14 3.0
Score: 588
1 Mult = 1.0 Q's