2001 ARRL 10M Contest
Call: KQ2M 31.4 hours operation
Category: Single Operator
Power: High Power
Band: Mono 10
Mode: Mixed Mode Unassisted
State: CT
MODE QSO QSO PTS STATES COUNTRIES
CW 1546 6188 59 86 145
SSB 1822 3644 60 85 145
-----------------------------------------
Totals 3368 9832 119 171 290 = 2,851,280
All reports sent were 59(9), unless otherwise noted.
Equipment Description:
FT1000MP + Titan 425 x 2
Radio 1 Hygain 105CA 5/5/5 @ 23'/37'/101' 23' Fixed NE 37' & 101' Rotatable
Radio 2 Hygain 105CA 5 @ 67' Fixed NE, 3L @ 35' in a tree Fixed SE
(Not very effective - too much intermod. for effective 2nd radio work)
2 Phased NE Beverages 260'
Club Affiliation: Frankford Radio Club
Comments:
This has always been one of my favorite contests! 10 is such a "mystery
band" that you almost never know what to expect. With the highest Solar
Flux and Sunspot in many years, I expected outrageous conditions. Indeed
cndx to JA and the Far-East and Asia were the best I can ever remember and
although cndx to most of EU and US were good they were considerably poorer
than in past years even though I worked more EU this year. Huh?
(I focused on EU with lower rates because I had trouble running US well!)
The weird propagation is fascinating. I find meteor scatter to be VERY cool
with barely audible stations going up to S9 and back to barely audible in
1 - 2 seconds. Then you add in the "echoes", skew path, auroral buzz,
sporadic E and multi-path and you have quite a potpourri and challenge.
I guess that is part of the charm of 10 Meters - HI!
Everything worked well with the exception of when I was trying to move a
5N station to CW on Sunday AM. As the band was opening, I all of a sudden
lost my 10 meter stackmatch and then the power supply and everything else.
The power supply worked fine once I removed the 10 Meter stackmatch
controller. When I hooked up the 10 Meter stackmatch controller directly
to a 12V power adapter it still did not work. Then I hooked up the
10 Meter stackmatch controller again to the power supply and everything
worked fine. I lost 20 minutes and gained a new mystery. No problems
after that except for when one computer ran out of memory. Turned out that
when I edited the config.sys and autoexec.bat files "on the fly" and removed
the DVP, the computer worked fine after that.
Here are some details from my 1999, 2000 and 2001 logs.
1999 2000 2001
SFI/A/K Index 160/10/2 140/18/3 217/11/3
Aurora (1-10) Quiet 2 Moderate 4-6 Heavy 5-8
Sporadic E Great both evenings None at night! None at night!
Q's/Mults CW 1507/138 1530/146 1546/145
SSB 1870/147 1793/143 1822/145
Totals 3377/285 3323/289 3368/290
Score 2,783,880 2,805,034 2,851,280
New Record New Record New Record
Hours Operated 34.9 34.1 31.4
% NA 52.4 56.5 47.0
% EU 39.7 36.6 42.1
% Asia/JA 3.4 2.5 6.5
The higher flux clearly helped with JA and other Asian nults which are VERY
tough from the NE in December on 10 due to the rapidly dropping MUF with
darkness at 2145z. This year the SFI raised the MUF and overcame the Aurora
at night but in the morning (before Sunrise at 1215z) the MUF was too low
and the Aurora hurt, delaying the band openings by about 1 hour each day.
Even with the Aurora, there were truly amazing signals out of UA9 on Saturday
morning and the cw rates were phenomenal once the band opened.
I operated differently this year bouncing between CW and SSB each
hour to try to maximize the mults on both modes. This strategy did not work
however. In fact I have operated this contest with three very different
stategies in the past three years, producing almost identical results on
on each mode and almost identical scores. A head-scratcher for sure.
I think the cndx are just so variable on 10 that it almost negates changes
in stategy unless there is a lot more mult activity in a given year.
However, there is so much less activity from Asia, Europe and Africa
in the ARRL 10M than CQWW, that hunting for mults. is not as productive as
it could be.
Thanks to everyone for all the qso's and qsy's which make this contest the
great fun that it is!
73 and Happy New Year
Bob KQ2M
This is to certify that in this contest I have operated
my transmitter within the limitations of my license and have
observed fully the rules and regulations of the contest.
Signature _________________________________
MAILING ADDRESS:
Robert L. Shohet KQ2M
51 Scudder Road
Newtown, CT 06470
HOUR 10 HR TOT CUM TOT
0 114/56 114/56 114/56
1 78/10 78/10 192/66
2 58/5 58/5 250/71
3 47/11 47/11 297/82
4 23/2 23/2 320/84
5 . . 320/84
6 . . 320/84
7 . . 320/84
8 ..... ..... 320/84
9 . . 320/84
10 9/7 9/7 329/91
11 56/29 56/29 385/120
12 143/15 143/15 528/135
13 145/29 145/29 673/164
14 163/18 163/18 836/182
15 147/5 147/5 983/187
16 142/10 142/10 1125/197
17 151/12 151/12 1276/209
18 165/19 165/19 1441/228
19 115/5 115/5 1556/233
20 115/6 115/6 1671/239
21 100/7 100/7 1771/246
22 81/8 81/8 1852/254
23 85/1 85/1 1937/255
0 92/2 92/2 2029/257
1 24/0 24/0 2053/257
2 . . 2053/257
3 5/0 5/0 2058/257
4 . . 2058/257
5 . . 2058/257
6 . . 2058/257
7 . . 2058/257
8 ..... ..... 2058/257
9 . . 2058/257
10 1/1 1/1 2059/258
11 36/6 36/6 2095/264
12 82/1 82/1 2177/265
13 113/3 113/3 2290/268
14 145/6 145/6 2435/274
15 166/4 166/4 2601/278
16 173/0 173/0 2774/278
17 156/2 156/2 2930/280
18 107/0 107/0 3037/280
19 68/2 68/2 3105/282
20 61/1 61/1 3166/283
21 82/1 82/1 3248/284
22 54/4 54/4 3302/288
23 66/2 66/2 3368/290
DAY1 1937/255 ..... 1937/255
DAY2 1431/35 . 1431/35
TOT 3368/290 . 3368/290
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