North American QSO Party, CW
Call: NC4KW
Operator(s): N1LN
Station: N1LN
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: NC
Operating Time (hrs): 10
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 6 6
80: 47 23
40: 178 42
20: 296 48
15: 155 37
10: 59 25
-------------------
Total: 741 181 Total Score = 134,121
Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club
Team:
Comments:
Before the start of NAQP I had a goal of 1000 Qs. Well, so much for goals. I
think Mother Nature decided that this particular goal would wait for another
year. I have never heard static crashes this bad since a ARRL-DX contest I
participated in from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. I even considered throwing in the
towel a couple times, but I kept hearing my fellow PVRC members in the
background â?? â??you can only get a good score if you keep you butt in the
chairâ??. So, in the chair I stayed. One decision was made early that I
stayed with. My first hour break would be to have dinner with my wife,
instead of her bringing mine to the radio room as she usually does. The second
break would start at 05:00 UTC (1:00am local) as I was not going to listen to
another hour of crashes on 80 and 160.
Starting out on 15 turned to be interesting. Many were running â?? not me. I
just couldnâ??t get anything going. So I kept busy with S/P on 15 and running
on 20. Not many people were on 20 yet so it was just about S/P on both bands.
The static was amazing. For the first couple of hours I was getting crashes of
over S9 on both 15 and 20. By the end of the first 3 hours I only had 204 Qs
in the log. â??Keep you butt in the chairâ??. Then everything started to
change. I had two hours of > 120 Q/hr. I kept one ear on 15 and was even
able to get a good run going there. When 15 started to die I started to run
again on 20 and S/P on 10. Quickly I switched, as 10 was now open for central
NC. 2200-23:00 UTC. During that time I swapped beams between W and NNE. The
static was much worse on the 105â?? yagis and not bad on the 65â?? so they
became my West looking on 10, 15 and 20. The top beams were relegated to NE.
After a break for dinner it was time to try 40 and it was ready. I had already
decided to do the same with the beams using the low beam for W and high for NE.
That kept the static down. I tried my beverages but they were even noisy.
That is where I confirmed that my second off hour with be 05:00 to 06:00 UTC .
I tried to run on 80 but the static was just too high, so I decided to see
just how good these K3s are. I set the filter down to 150hz and did some S/P.
I was able to walk up 80 meters with a rate of almost 90. NOT BAD. No way
would filters that tight have worked in run mode. The stations were just not
that close to my xmit frequency. My only 160 Qs were from moves. Either
moving someone or being moved. Six Qs, six Mults.
Conclusions - Static and QRN is part of summer contests. Keep you butt in the
chair. Great to have 15 and 10 open. I am already looking forward to NAQP SSB
in August, hopefully the first M2 event from the new station.
73,
Bruce - N1LN
(aka: NC4KW)
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
______________________________________________
3830 mailing list
3830@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/3830
|