CQ 160-Meter Contest, SSB
Call: N2CW
Operator(s): N2OO, W2USF, K2RET, N2OZ, W2ARP, WA2ZZE, KE2OI, W2RDM, W2OB,
N2HM
Station: N2CW
Class: Multi-Op HP
QTH: Southern New Jersey
Operating Time (hrs): 40
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 989 State/Prov = 55 Countries = 50 Total
Score = 345,345
Club: SOUTH JERSEY DX ASSOCIATION
Comments: Our 10th year operating from the salt water marsh site of the old
coastal station WSC which is also used by W2GD and his CW team. After Super
Storm Sandy trashed our operating site in October, we all had our hands full
to prepare the site for the 160 contest season. The first priority was to
help our site owner WYRS FM (c/o N2HM) with site repairs and cleanup.
Luckily, the main building did not have any serious issues. But the antenna
fields were a mess. The entire site was under about 3 feet of water during
the height of the storm. This flooded our storage shed and damaged most of
our coax that was stored or left installed below 3 feet. Our beverages were
nearly all damaged by falling trees and had to be repaired. Just hiking into
the woods, which is never much fun at our site, was extremely difficult to
do this year. Fortunately, for some reason we procrastinated setting up the
transmit antennas. Normally, they would have been up and running by
mid-October! A full force cooperative effort was done by members of the W2GD
team, SJDXA, and the Old Barney ARC to help N2HM clean up the site, and get
the site ready for the 160 contest season. The transmit antennas were
re-erected on the 300 foot main tower at the site in the salt marsh.
Unfortunately, the CW team had to skip the ARRL 160 contest this year due to
the storm, but later was able to test out everything in the Stew Perry
Contest in preparation for the CQWW 160 CW. The W2GD team had a respectable
score in that contest, and then handed off the "antenna farm" to the SJDXA
SSB team for our effort as N2CW.
On Friday, a small crew arrived at the site to prune the transmit antennas
for better resonance across the entire band (the W2GD team always has it
tuned for the low end for their CW contest operations). We trusted that the
beverages were OK. We set up all of our radio gear and had a good crew to
operate at the start of the contest. We had no serious equipment issues at
all this time. Only a few SMALL computer glitches but helpful assists were
made by Marty W2CG over the phone! It usually seems that SOMETHING goes
wrong! But not this year.
Conditions to EU were "OK" Friday evening. We were working EU all night
through EU sunrise. We decided to run all day on Saturday and opt to QRT at
1400 UTC (9AM) on Sunday morning. Saturday evening conditions were not very
good to EU. But they were in there and we were able to pick them up from
time to time. Working west was not difficult. But we probably missed WY, NV
by concentrating too much on EU? I don't know.
Our team consists of mostly casual contesters and DXer's who transform
themselves into maniac contesters once a year for this contest! This year
was extra special because I felt that although it took 10 years, we finally
got a team together who understands HOW to do this contest! Do it well! And,
have fun doing it! I am VERY proud to be a part of this crew and I look
forward to doing it every year with them in the future.
See ya' in the Pileups!
73!
Bob Schenck, N2OO
President SJDXA
GO SJDXA!!! www.sjdxa.org
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