ARRL DX Contest, SSB
Call: K3FIV
Operator(s): K3FIV
Station: K3FIV
Class: SOAB LP
QTH: CA CM88eu
Operating Time (hrs): 16
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 0 0
80: 17 15
40: 47 21
20: 48 17
15: 98 28
10: 108 30
-------------------
Total: 318 111 Total Score = 104,895
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
Rig: Flex-3000, 100W
Ant: 80M Carolina Windom, all bands
Another great opportunity for my mission - see what you can do with 100W and a
wire. Band conditions seemed pretty poor, which made it challenging with just
a dipole, especially on 20/15/10. I did get a few EU contacts through the
East Coast Wall, but mostly this was SA, AS, and the Caribbean for me.
Thanks to everyone who pulled out my weak signal. You have amazing "ears". It
was interesting to have several stations from the same country, all "KW" types,
and all about the same signal strength at my end. Some could pick my call up
right away even with QRM. Others just CQed back at me even with no other
callers. It might be time to look at your receiver performance!
Kudos to the stations running very low power! I worked LU7HS who was running 5
watts on 10M, and several JAs running 50W. Best DX was YB0NSI on 10M.
I learned a new tactic for us Little Pistol stations, for whom these contests
are usually 99% S&P. The crowd always abandons 15 and 10 to head to 40 around
sunset. But with the sunspots now, the high bands stay open well after local
dark. I trolled for a while on 15M, working all the remaining CQers. VK4QH
commented that my call on 15M "blew him out of the shack" - with just a dipole
on my end, the band was obviously still very open, but everyone had left the
party already.
So there was plenty of room to find a clear spot on 15 and 10 and do a little
running, especially since there were still lots of Asian and OC stations
looking toward NA. The "rates" you can get aren't enough to satisfy the
appetites of the big guns, but for us Little Pistols you get a lot more
contacts than when slugging it out in the middle of the crowd. It was
interesting to watch the difference in the reports - where my contacts before
were dominated by "K" stations, now the most common power was 200, 100, or 50.
Most interesting QSO was from KC6NDC, who was calling CQ on 40M in the midst of
the fray, as an experimental station. I gave him a call because he was running
an unusual antenna - it's underground! Really. Check out on QRZ.com.
All in all, an interesting contest despite the conditions. I decided to stop
when I hit 300 Qs, but I was so close to 100K points that I slugged it out for
a little while longer.
See you in the California QSO Party from (rare) MENDocino County! October 6-7,
2012!
73,
/Jack de K3FIV
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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