Michigan QSO Party
Call: KT8K
Operator(s): KT8K
Station: KT8K
Class: Single Op QRP
QTH: EN82cg MI
Operating Time (hrs): 11
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs
--------------------
80: 98 68
40: 105 21
20: 31 1
15: 0 0
10: 0 0
--------------------
Total: 234 90 CW Mults = 70 Ph Mults = 45 Total Score = 64,170
Club: ARROW Communications Association
Comments:
Murphy stopped here just before the start. I went out for contest food and came
back an hour before the start only to see my 550' horizontal loop lying on the
roof of the house, the broken ends somewhere high in a nearby tree, leaving me
with only my 20/40/80 inverted vee. I hate having only one antenna (I'd
previously removed 2 others to make room for a new lazy H vertical.) Faced
with the choice of trying to fix the loop or hurriedly cobbling my new vertical
into some kind of shape, I chose the latter. As a result I lost the first hour
of the contest working in the wind and snowflakes, and the cobbled vertical
sadly never outperformed the old 20/40/80 inverted vee, so the vee was my
transmit antenna for the duration.
That must have upset me more than I realized, as I QLFed for the next hour. I
made all kinds of operating mistakes until I eventually found my rhythm and ran
A LOT from there on - a great pleasure for a QRPer - doing better and better
right up to the end. I never heard anything on 15m and never even checked 10m,
and the other bands were poor at best here early on.
The mobiles were great, though I didn't specifically chase them (lesson for
next year). I did put the 2009 MiQP article on the screen behind N1MM (happy
to be using that this year), reading and re-reading the analysis of what I did
wrong last year and working to correct myself and do better. Looking at last
year's score and analysis was a great motivator.
Fortunately, though 20m was too long to get me anything much closer than
Florida, 40 and 80m got better and better, and I was pleased to get calls from
a half dozen Eu stations, mostly on 40m, and a lot of very nice compliments on
my signal.
I don't expect to ever catch K8MM with my wires in the trees, but I will learn
and do better next year - maybe I can worry him a little. :-) It was great to
work my old friend KM6I during the event, too. Thanks for all the Q's,
everybody, and best rx to all. C U in WPX CW and maybe one of the events
before that! 73 - Tim, KT8K
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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