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[3830] ARRLDX CW N1EN SO Unlimited LP

To: 3830@contesting.com
Subject: [3830] ARRLDX CW N1EN SO Unlimited LP
From: webform@b4h.net
Reply-to: mda@n1en.org
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 03:11:10 +0000
List-post: <3830@contesting.com">mailto:3830@contesting.com>
                    ARRL DX Contest, CW

Call: N1EN
Operator(s): N1EN
Station: N1EN

Class: SO Unlimited LP
QTH: CT
Operating Time (hrs): 
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:    3     3
   80:  132    53
   40:  321    76
   20:  494    93
   15:  494    93
   10:  401    90
-------------------
Total: 1845   408  Total Score = 2,253,384

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments:

So, a while back I set my benchmark for “a good contest weekend” at 1000
contacts and 100 countries worked.

Maybe I need to revise that standard.

1845 contacts worked in 114 DXCC entities and 33 CQ Zones.

I spent the first 24 hours of the contest doing “double-fisted S&P”
(search & pounce on two radios).  Then I started hitting slow patches,
during which I decided to suck it up and run.  My code seems to have improved
to the point where it’s not terrifying to do so…but I apparently still
really suck at copying code and typing into a logger at the same time.  My
apologies to those who suffered through the experience.  (Hey, considering how
difficult CW has been for me, and considering I’m still a relative newbie,
I’m content with a “not horrible, but room for improvement”
performance.)

Highlights of the contest:

* Having an understanding XYL willing to observe Valentine’s Day on Zulu
Time, rather than Eastern Standard Time.

* Practice with Morserunner starting to pay off.

* Conditions Friday night into Saturday afternoon.  Maybe not as good as they
could have been, but still pretty gosh-darned good.

* As my first beam went up only hours before CQWW…this was the first major
contest where I could really appreciate the wonders of long-path.

* Not only working Laos for an all-time new one (#267), but doing so by beating
a pileup, getting through on first call. 

* Getting to work the VK6FZM/MM, on their way home from îsle Amsterdam.

Lowlights of the contest:

* All the bands going virtually dead for a time Saturday evening.  Old Sol has
a sense of humor.

* Having first the logger crash, and then the entire computer needing rebooting
and COM-port fussing as propagation started to recover from the aforementioned
deadness.

* 40 and 80 meters having a disappointing amount of QRN due to regional weather
Saturday night.

* Interruptions in the RBN feed Sunday afternoon.  It would have been just an
annoyance to me, but a few folks have found my little AR Cluster node and so I
needed to make sure they were all set as well.  (Note to self: don’t try
managing AR Cluster connections while running.  It’s a bad idea.)

Work to do before next IARU…or at least before CQWW this fall:

* Replace, or at least improve, the temporary mast the hexbeam is currently
living on.   I didn’t think to secure the military mast sections together by
anything other than gravity.  While the situation has improved since CQWW, I
still have some “weathervaning” action, requiring me to get up and look
outside to see which way the mast is pointing every so often.  It’s not fun
to stick one’s head out the shack window when it’s snowing; it’s going to
be more of a problem when the weather warms and an air conditioner goes in that
window.

* More practice running at CW.   Now that I’m over the “deer in the
headlights” sensation it is fun…but I really need to get to where I can get
better rates running than I can with “two fisted S&P”, and to do that, I
need to get the hang of copying callsigns and working the logger simultaneously.
  It’d be great if I could do true SO2R as well.

* I need to look at improving antenna switching and filtering in the shack. 
And, if I’m going to be addicted to assistance, I need a more robust way to
operate an in-shack skimmer.

* I put together a nice pre-big-contest checklist.  Now I need to remember to
start it well before the contest, instead of “day of”.

Contact map & stats up at http://www.n1en.org/Blog/Post/18/ARRL-DX-CW-2014

Station:

K3 & Icom IC7100, both barefoot
Hexbeam @ 8m (don't laugh)
40m Delta Loop
80m Carolina Windom @ 20m
160m Carolina Windom @ 15m
Skimmer, fed through an FCD Dongle, fed by K3's IF output
In shack AR-Cluster


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