ARRL DX Contest, SSB
Call: VP9/W6PH
Operator(s): W6PH
Station: VP9GE
Class: SOAB LP
QTH: Bermuda
Operating Time (hrs): 40
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 350 46
80: 730 53
40: 1092 55
20: 1540 58
15: 38 13
10: 2 2
-------------------
Total: 3760 227 Total Score = 2,560,560
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
Solr flux: 69 A: 29 K:5
Rig: IC-7000 CT 9.57 W1MD NEC 486-50 DOS Laptop
Ant: 160m Inverted L (50' vertical 75' horiztal, 4 WA4PGM radials)
75m G5RV at 25 feet
40m KA Dipole at 25 feet
20-10m A4S at 30 feet
More contacts this year but way down on multipliers. 15 meters just wasn't
there. I had a sporadic E opening to the mid-Atlantic and southern W1 for
about 20 minutes. On Sunday afternoon, the band opened to Colorado and Texas
but couldn't get any volume of contacts going. I checked both 15 and 10 often
during the contest in between CQs on 20m. The two contacts on 10m were moves
by K3LR and K1CX, very weak signals.
Twenty meters yielded the most contacts but was overcrowded and suffered from
rapid fading. I had one frequency altercation after I had been on a frequency
near 14275 for about an hour. The chap came on for his daily chat on 14275 and
started swearing and cursing at me about contesters. He never did identify.
I'm really not used to being called those names. I moved to another
frequency.
Forty meters was awesome. The Europeans were a lot weaker than usual which
made it possible to find a frequency below 7100. I tried split transmitting
around 7105 to 7115 but results were dismal. Likewise, I tried "simplex" in
the American phone band but couldn't achieve the rate that I had running split
below 7100. When the broadcasters are finally gone, this will be a great band
for "simplex" contacts. The KA dipole really worked well and I got a lot of
reports of S9 plus. In fact, all the signal reports were 59 except for a 44
from K6VVA.
On 75 meters, the best results were around 3750 despite tries at CQing lower.
I guess it takes awhile for habits to change. On 160m, I stayed north of 1840
in my attempt to comply with the band plan. My location close to the
mid-Atlantic provided great propagation to the densely ham populated
northeast.
My only problem occurred during the last two hours when I couldn't get CT to
stay on 40m and it would revert back to the default 20m after each 40m contact.
I finally disconnected the IC-7000 from the computer and manually changed the
band to 40m without radio control. Still haven't figured out why it happened
as I have been using the same version for the last ten years and never had it
happen before.
This is my ninth year of operating the ARRL DX Contests from VP9GE. I really
appreciate Ed's wonderful hospitality.
73, Kurt, W6PH
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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