ARRL DX Contest, CW
Call: K7NV
Operator(s): K7NV
Station: K7NV
Class: SOAB(A) HP
QTH: NV
Operating Time (hrs): 38.5
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 25 15
80: 93 30
40: 421 74
20: 295 76
15: 447 72
10: 52 28
-------------------
Total: 1333 295 Total Score = 1,175,280
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
Had an invite to go up to K5RC's and do a 40m singleband gig, but the wx
forecast was for rain/snow Friday-Sunday, didn't think I wanted to try that in
my little 2wd truck.
I was planning on working most of the weekend and just fooling around a bit in
the contest. ARRLDX is usually just a big struggle from here with lots of hours
of boredom and frustration. Thursday night I realized I had never really put in
a full effort in this contest with this stuff, so in a very weak moment I
decided to really get in the contest. Not a particularly good idea, when you are
not prepared and all sorted out and psyced up for it. I decided to play with
packet again, just to introduce some more chance for fun when it got real
boring. This was stand alone on the laptop on the side, not piped into the
logging computer. Sorting thru a screen full of spots to find something you need
is a real "needle in a haystack" thing while trying to keep both stations doing
something useful. But, it did make the "bored to tears" times better.
It ended up being a bit of fun and beat my previous best low score with a little
higher low one.
The first 10 hours were a real blast with my head spinning around with both
radios going full time. I got all excited thinking this is really gonna be a
great one. Low band condx here Friday night were the best I can ever remember
here in a DX contest. Too bad I could hear more guys than could hear me, still
nuf excitement to stay engaged in it. It went pretty steeply downhill the second
day meeting up with my previous experiences.
Never really was able to get established on 15 or 20 m to EU to get running.
Finally managed to get a 50 hour running EU up at 21.108, also got a 40 hour out
of 20m way up the band somewhere, so that was the extent of EU run fun.
Fortunately, I had no noise for most of the morning EU openings, so it was fun
to try and work those weak guys fading in and out of the S0 noise floor.
I had some new problem with TRLog never seen before. Right when I would hit the
enter key to send the exchange to a guy answering my cq, it would display the
command prompt below the callsign line and go dead. After a few times I figured
out to hand log the q on the scratch paper, reboot the computer and log the q
again when it came back online (about 2 min's). While it was down I couldn't
send any cw as I'm setup to do all that thru the program. This happened at least
once per hour, sometimes every 20 qso's, but I didn't want to stop and waste a
bunch of time not fixing the problem, so I just laughed a lot and kept myself
fully entertained with it. Probably some RF problems that are new, but I haven't
changed a thing for months (ferrites on all the leads for a long time), so guess
it's just contesting making sure it keeps me challenged (as if it wasn't already
hard enough to get right).
Top two unsuccessful moves:
IR2X asks me when I call him on 40m to move to 160m, "sure dude!" (I'm thinking
he's smoki'n something, I can't hear EU on 160m with a deranged dipole at <55'.
We go there and he's booming in here! He cq's 20 times, I call him 20 times, no
joy! Pretty exciting stuff though for the "contest challenged."
I ask P49Y late Sat nite when he'll be on 160m cuz I needed him there for the
"P49 sweep" (and the boredom factor is high), he surprises me and sez go now and
gives me a freq. We go there and.....you guessed it....he's booming in here, but
can't hear me. Thanks for trying Andy!
To offset these little frowners, OO4UN hears me ok on 80 SP for an easy one and
SM2EKM comes back on one call LP Sunday morning on 80. Even the blind squirrel
gets a nut every once in a while.
Favorite juicy one not worked:
A west coast W9 sends A61Q a note on packet for a sked on 160m Sunday at
sunrise. I'm thinking this is some real wishful thinking. I really need to be
smoki'n whatever that guy has! I go listen and hear the W9 work the A6, can't
hear the DX guy. Then a couple more guys appear to work him. I'm right at
sunrise and can tell the A6 is there but can't copy him well enough to try to
work him. Now, I'm not sure if any of it really happened or maybe it was just
another contest hallucination. But, what an exciting way to spend many minutes
of ones contest thinking ya might just get a juicy one.
The real problem I see with operating assisted for the second time now is that
you get a chance to see what you really are missing when you can't hear them, or
they can't hear you. The old fashioned way you just blast away and don't know
how bad off you really are till the scores are reported, so you can't get
discouraged. I ignored the packet a lot of the time and just ground up and down
the bands S&P'ing. Still, it tweaked a little excitement into the 20 or so
boring hours, so I don't regret it.
I didn't get in the time I was hoping for because I wasn't really ready for
this. I did a couple of head dips on the op desk when I started to hallucinate
cuz I couldn't find anything new to work. The fatigue showed in TR's bandchange
report with twice as many the first day. Both radios were open on Sunday but
it's hard to find new stuff when ya can't get a run going and have already
worked all the cqing dx stations.
Not counting the no pointers, I had 820 q's cqing and 508 S&P'ing.
Best hour was the first one at 108, worst hour was 05:00 the second day at 4
(heard lots of dupes) just before I took a nap.
Thanks to all for yet another contest adventure! It ended up still being more
fun than not giving it a try, and it's always fun to work a lot of friends out
there having a good time.
73, Kurt
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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