SHORT- Conditions and activity a bit down from last year.
Thanks to Paul, KF7MD, who again this year operated most of the
second night.
W0AH 979 Q's 75 9 166,992
1500 watts to 90' shunt fed, top loaded vertical
One NE terminated beverage and one E-W unterminated beverage
LONG- Paul, KF7MD, and I did our multi thing again this year. I operated the
first night. Paul operated most of the second. I started running staions at
2200 Friday on 1838 and, except for several 90 second WC and coffee breaks,
ran stations on 1838 continuously for the next 16 hours, making 709 Q's, one
more than last year, but about 8 fewer mults since I worked little DX except
for IK2DED and a couple of Carrribean staions who called me (thanks). I was
flattered that several others thought I had chosen a marvelous frequency and
wanted to share it. As it turned out, I should have left the frequency to
those who coveted it and went chasing DX, because many of the DX mults were
not workable later.
I finally hooked up DX Summit at 3 AM local and discovered the JAs were
already being heard and that there was a ZL, that I quickly worked on his
freq.
Yes, there were a couple of fairly strong JA's in the window, earlier than I
usually hear them here in Colorado. I thought we might have a really good JA
opening like we did last year when I worked about 30 the first night.
Luckily, I worked two of them right away, because by 5 AM local the auroral
zone had exploded, the K index was up to 3 or 4, and no JAs were heard the
last two hours before sunrise.
Conditions were poorer to the east coast the second night, no Europeans were
making it through the auroral zone, and it became increasingly noisy,
especially after midnight. Paul's good ears managed to work some DX,
including the YV, but by the time I took over at 4:30 AM local, the static
crashes were sometimes over S9, even on the beverages. I apologize to those
who called that I could not copy. I tried, but even our power lines got into
the act, adding to the cacophony. I heard no JA's the second morning
although one spotted me.
It was fun to work WAS the second year in a row.
Our Q's were down about 10 percent from last year and our score over 15 per
cent. I love 160M contests so will see you again for the CQ 160 meter tests.
Hope everyone had fun. Thanks to everyone who called.
Doug W0AH central Colorado near Pikes Peak
--
FAQ on WWW: http://www.contesting.com/3830faq.html
Submissions: 3830@contesting.com
Administrative requests: 3830-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems: owner-3830@contesting.com
|