ARRL 160-Meter Contest
Call: K5NA
Operator(s): K5NA
Station: K5NA
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: STX
Operating Time (hrs): 34
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 1280 Sections = 79 Countries = 16 Total Score = 262,865
Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club
Comments:
Here we are again, another year and another ARRL 160M Contest. As usual I went
into the contest with a goal to just make the HP top ten from Texas. It remains
to be seen if I have managed to do that.
It would be hard to top last year's contest when conditions were excellent and I
managed the get the first known section sweep in the ARRL 160. I noticed that at
least one multi-op station this year has done it (K5GO) and there may even be
more. But I haven't seen a report yet of a single-op doing it. I will tell you
up front that I missed Northwest Territories this year and never had any
indication that they were on. So getting 80 sections for two years in a row just
didn't happen for me.
The first night of the contest was pretty average for conditions from Texas.
This means I made a lot of QSOs but not much DX. After the first night I had
only 5 European countries in the log, G, DL, I, ON, and F. My beverages were
working well and I seemed to be hearing the weaker W/VE stations.
The second night was another story. After a good start and getting another
Europe (EA6) in the log, the bands suddenly went flat about 0100Z. I don't know
what happened but signal levels became unstable and weaker in general. Then,
about 0300Z, the QRN and static crashes started. Quickly the QRN level grew to
10 to 15 DB over S9 on the beverages. It became impossible to hear any signal
that was not loud. My QSO rates dropped to almost nothing.
For the next few hours I struggled and each QSO I made was exausting getting
repeats and fills. For one of the first times in my life I thought seriously
about getting up and walking away from the radio. But then I remembered that the
ARRL 160M Contest is my favorite so I stuck with the CQing, static crashes, QRN,
and weak signals.
I had a lot of trouble staying awake during the wee hours Sunday listening to my
CQ machine go on and on. All the while I would hear callers and know that there
was no way I could copy most of them. Sometimes I would manage to complete a QSO
after a struggle. About 0900Z the QRN started going down and the last couple of
darkness hours were not too bad. I had managed to run about 25 JA stations the
first night and I added another 25 JAs the second morning. That helped the score
some.
As usual, I always enjoy the ARRL 160M Contest. But you never know what to
expect from year to year. This was not my best year, but wasn't all that bad
either.
73, Richard - K5NA
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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