ARRL DX Contest, CW
Call: ON4UN
Operator(s): ON4UN
Station: ON4UN
Class: SOSB/160 HP
QTH:
Operating Time (hrs): 16.25
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 467 51
80:
40:
20:
15:
10:
-------------------
Total: 467 51 Total Score = 71,451
Club: Rhein Ruhr DX Association
Comments:
This year and next year (maybe also 2008) should be the best year of the present
cycle for doing it on 160m. That?s why, after many years of doing this contest
single band 80m, I decided to try it on top band. The first night the rates were
good, with only a slight dip between 05:00 and 06:00, but with 43 QSO?s per hour
(average) and a peak hour of 67Q?s/hour (02:00-03:00) I don?t want to complain.
I had expected the skip to lengthen out to the west in the last hour before
sunset, but with the exception of W4MGY in NV and K7TJR in OR nothing happened
(except K0HA in NE). I went to bed at 07:00 with 302 Q?s and 34 mults. When I
wanted to start the second ?night? around 22:00 z it appeared that I lost my
log? It took me about 1.5 hours to get things back in working condition, thanks
to Tom, N1MM. I must have done something wrong, so all QSOs were marked as
deleted, but there is a recovery system, which I had no experience with as this
was the first time this happed to me. At 23:30z I was back in business. It was
amazing to see that the QSO rates the second night (at least until 05:00z) were
almost as good (=2/3rds)as the first night. Around 03:15z the ship apparently
lengthened to the West and W7ZQ (WY) was the first shot our there, followed by
K0LLX (my only CO station!), W6BH and K6XX (CA), K6GNX (NV), n5UL(only station
from NM), N7JW( who else from UT), and W1YY/& (WA, boy was he loud!). I never
heard a single Az station, and this Arizona should be the "easiest" W7 state to
work! At 0500 the little ?lift? to the Wrest was history. Mults had risen to 51,
as I was also called by W3DQ in Washington DC. Whereas I had hoped that the
condition would actually peak towards my sunrise, the band died a peaceful and
especially quiet death after a very poor 1 hour spell (05:00 -06:00) with only
10 QSOs! At 06:48 z (my exact sunrise time) I quit with exactly 450 good QSOs
and 51 mults in the log. The third and much shorter session was 22:00-24:00z.
This gave me another 19 QSO?s (2 of them were dupes) so I ended with 467 good
QSOs, good for 71,451 points.
The station performed very well, the Orion (Mk 1) gets all my credit, but also
my end fire phased Beverages to the US. The average noise reduction off the back
(were most of the noise comes from) is tremendous, and I get about 2-3 dB better
S/N ratio vs a single Beverage (I have two sinegle Beverages up to the US as
well), and these couple of dBs allow me work one "deeper" layer of weak signals.
I know that a good score in this contest is not(only) a matter of having a
strong signal; the secret is to be able to hear all the weak signals that are
calling you! My good friend ON4WW told me the 160m record from Europe stood at
about 61K points until now. I am biting off my fingernails now...
Thank you, all of you who are in the log, for your points. Sorry to those who
cared to call, and whom I still could not hear. I'll do my best to further
improve my station so that, by next year, I can dig one further layer into the
noise! In thoroughly enjoyed the contest! 73 John, ON4UN
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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