K9RS, AA7V, N3DXX, K2LE, W2GD and AA5B operated the station in ARRL DX CW 2018. See their posting on 3830.
Thanks to Ray, K9RS, the station now has a new radio: An Elecraft K3 with a 2nd RX replacing the FT-1000D that are becoming a little old.
The team built a temporary 800 ft beverage in the uninhabited space in the back of the house and also made a temporary improvement to the 80 m dipole by adding a director.
K9RS: “The beverage was a KD9SV reversible beverage set and 800 ft of twisted pair. We buried the cable to feed it under the road and fed it back near the chicken coop and ran it south east for the 800 ft, almost to the road. I terminated the forward end and just used the reversed end. It worked very well. Both ends were terminated with a long screwdriver and 2 20 ft wire radials perpendicular to the beverage and laying on the ground. The other thing I did was add a director to the 80 meter inverted V off the front US tower. RBN tests showed this to add about 3 dB to the US and interestingly we did not see a change to Europe. I undid both the beverage and director at the end of the contest but can give you the details as they worked very well.”