ARRL DX Contest, CW
Call: K3CR
Operator(s): LZ4AX
Station: K3CR
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: State College, PA
Operating Time (hrs): 44
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 111 62
80: 482 79
40: 861 99
20: 1538 99
15: 218 68
10: 2 2
-------------------
Total: 3212 409 Total Score = 3,941,124
Club: North Coast Contesters
Comments:
Sorry for the late post. Forgot to get the log with me after the contest and had
to go to the station today again to get the right numbers. I know how
frustrating it might be to wait for someone to finally post his score, so my
apologies again.
The preparations for this one took nearly 2 weeks. We lost both 80m dipoles
during CQWW CW. One amplifier, the 40m array and all beverages were found to be
non working later. The amplifier was an easy fix (tnx to W1WEF column in
Scuttlebutt) but everything else required a lot of work. Let's just say that
even Friday's schedule included two climbs on the 190 ft towers and one on the
100 ft tower at -10C and 60 km/h winds. At 21Z everything was ready and I even
had time to drive back home to take a shower and eat something before the
contest. It started very well. By the time I had to go 20 in the morning I was
250 Q's ahead of the last year rate sheet. The first full hour on 20 produced
191 Q's (yes, the run radio is a K3). It could have produced even more but
somehow K1LZ decided that they could try to steal my frequency, apparently
ignoring the fact that in LZ land we go over this kind of tricks in the
elementary school. Anyway, I kept the frequency but missed the chance to go
over 200. The second hour looked very promising when 20 minutes into the hour
the computer froze. I tried quick reboot but it wouldn't come back on.
Unplugging all the cables, cursing at it, kicking it, even putting a spell on
it didn't help at all. It wouldn't come back to life no matter what. After
completely taking it apart it turned out that one of the memory boards was
faulty. 56 minutes later I was back in business. Last year I lost to K1KI by 35
Q's and K1ZM was third, some 50 Q's behind. Loosing a high rate hour pretty much
meant that I'm out of the top 3 even if I don't make any mistake until the end.
There were some thoughts about giving up but not for long. If top 3 is gone,
then top 6 still might be doable. And there I went. By the time I got
everything going back again 15 was almost dead to EU, I could pick up only 5 EU
mults and went back to 20. Finding a run frequency was tough and I parked very
high, near the end of the band. The rates were miserable (below 120) but still
better then S&P. Later in the afternoon WA3FET came to check on me and brought
the news that K5ZD is only 200K ahead. This was kind of a turning point and
made me believe that US top 3 still might be doable. I realized that I will be
lacking Q's anyway, so a new initiative - "No Mult Left Behind" was quickly
developed and put in place. Until the end, the only mult I gave up on was OA4SS
on 10 meters. On Sunday wasted a lot of time on 15 trying to get as many EU
mults as possible. It definitely did hurt the 20m total but at the end this
strategy turned out to be successful as it looks like I managed to make the US
top 3.
Congratulations to NN3W for the fantastic score and as it looks - US win. Even
if everything worked perfectly I would have been extremely pressed to get close
to his score. Congratulations also to AA1K, W1UE@K5ZD, WC1M, K1ZZ who kept me on
my toes during the whole contest.
Since ARRL is still hesitating opening the logs, I'm making my log available to
anyone who wants to look at it. I don't have a website to upload it, so just
shoot me an e-mail. I don't need to know why you want to look at it. To keep
cq-contest reflector out of business, please do it after the log deadline.
And on a personal note: this was really my last contest at K3CR while I'm at
Penn State. I defended my PhD dissertation successfully around Christmas and
this week I'm moving to NYC where I took a job at Columbia
University/NASA-GISS. It is a short ride (4 hours) from State College, so I'll
keep pounding the bands from K3CR in the future.
I'm really thankful to Jim, WA3FET for his support and encouragement and for
letting me operate his station again.
CU on phone !
73, Alex LZ4AX
-------------- Q S O R a t e S u m m a r y --------------
Hour 160 80 40 20 15 10 Total Pct
-------------------------------------------------------------
0000 0 0 112 5 0 0 117 3.6
0100 16 0 68 0 0 0 84 2.6
0200 13 70 0 0 0 0 83 2.5
0300 11 86 0 0 0 0 97 3.0
0400 32 11 0 0 0 0 43 1.3
0500 3 63 0 0 0 0 66 2.0
0600 14 51 0 0 0 0 65 2.0
0700 3 20 32 0 0 0 55 1.7
0800 0 5 99 0 0 0 104 3.2
0900 0 5 61 0 0 0 66 2.0
1000 4 5 16 0 0 0 25 0.8
1100 1 5 2 57 0 0 65 2.0
1200 0 0 0 191 0 0 191 5.8
1300 0 0 0 73 0 0 73 2.2
1400 0 0 0 50 11 0 61 1.9
1500 0 0 0 111 6 0 117 3.6
1600 0 0 0 102 7 0 109 3.3
1700 0 0 0 65 12 0 77 2.4
1800 0 0 0 69 5 0 74 2.3
1900 0 0 0 101 10 0 111 3.4
2000 0 0 0 58 13 0 71 2.2
2100 0 0 58 48 0 0 106 3.2
2200 0 0 100 0 1 0 101 3.1
2300 0 0 59 21 0 0 80 2.4
0000 0 1 24 11 0 0 36 1.1
0100 0 18 16 0 0 0 34 1.0
0200 3 19 8 0 0 0 30 0.9
0300 4 6 0 0 0 0 10 0.3
0400 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
0500 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
0600 0 53 0 0 0 0 53 1.6
0700 5 42 1 0 0 0 48 1.5
0800 0 3 43 0 0 0 46 1.4
0900 0 3 14 0 0 0 17 0.5
1000 2 6 2 1 0 0 11 0.3
1100 0 0 1 68 0 0 69 2.1
1200 0 0 0 131 0 0 131 4.0
1300 0 0 0 119 0 0 119 3.6
1400 0 0 0 10 88 0 98 3.0
1500 0 0 0 15 46 0 61 1.9
1600 0 0 0 67 5 0 72 2.2
1700 0 0 0 68 4 0 72 2.2
1800 0 0 0 43 3 0 46 1.4
1900 0 0 0 32 0 0 32 1.0
2000 0 0 39 0 4 0 43 1.3
2100 0 0 43 0 0 2 45 1.4
2200 0 0 57 4 3 0 64 2.0
2300 0 10 6 18 0 0 34 1.0
------------------------------------------------------
Total 111 482 861 1538 218 2 3212
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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