ARRL 160-Meter Contest
Call: K3ZM
Operator(s): K3ZM
Station: K3ZM
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: VA
Operating Time (hrs): 32
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 1604 Sections = 80 Countries = 43 Total Score = 485,727
Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club
Comments:
Okay, so we had a nice warm up with Randy's little "VHF" contest last
weekend. Now, the real contest season is about to begin, where the men are
strong and the waves are long!
This running of the ARRL 160 has a whole back-story that would never come out
in any magazine write-up, so I may as well detail it here. Rather than just a
tale of a weekend's competition on a single band, this is about a youngest
child who was always well taken care of by his three older siblings and about
an oldest child whose passion, indeed whose life, is about radio - and who is
very competitive (no, you think?).
In order better to understand this story, we have to go back in time. It is
June or July of 1973, and K1ZM (WA2CLQ) and K3ZM (WB2JAM) have taken the train
into New York to sit for the Extra Class exam at the well known FCC offices on
the West Side. Jeff is nervous about the theory portion and I am nervous about
both. My code is mediocre while Jeff is great at it. At the U.S. Naval
Communications Training Center in Pensacola, he set a new record for accuracy
in the CW training classes for CT's and was even written up in the base
newspaper.
We are welcomed by the legendary office manager, whose name I recall as being
Finkelstein. He liked to smoke cigars and announce the final results of your
exam by saying, “Briggs?” “Yes, sir.” “Thirty days!”
We are ushered into the CW examination room and take our seats at a couple of
old wooden desks that pre-date Marconi’s trans-Atlantic test. Jeff pulls out
his blue Cross pen like he is Phil Mickelson brandishing a 64-degree wedge. We
put on headphones that probably came from the Titanic and the ancient machine
begins producing beautiful CW. I am really nervous. I try to write while my
hands are sticking to the paper. About halfway through, I glance over at Jeff,
who is sitting with perfect posture and appears as relaxed as anyone you will
ever see. I think I managed to scrawl about 24 words in a row with my
miserable handwriting. After a while, Finkelstein comes in and takes our
papers. A few minutes later, he walks back into the room and comes to me
first. I am scared. My writing is even worse than my code.
“You passed,” he says.
“Phew!” I say to myself. That was close.
“But you didn't do as well as he did,” he continues.
Finkelstein then walks up to Jeff. Now I have to explain that my brother has
always had a particular trait. Unless he is signing something or prompted to
write in cursive, he writes everything in all capital letters, in perfectly
even printing. It is odd. He also does this very quickly. I managed to steal
a glance at his examination paper as Finkelstein had walked past. It looked
like a page that had been transcribed by a typewriter with blue ink. There was
perfect spacing between each word. Needless to say, not a letter was missing.
A machine could not have done better.
Finkelstein looked at Jeff as though he had seen God. He held up Jeff’s
paper. “Son, if everyone wrote like that, I would not need to wear these
eyeglasses.”
* * * *
And so we are back to the ARRL 160 in 2014. K1ZM cannot be at his beloved
station on PEI and will have to operate in the contest from his nice home on
Cape Cod. He can hear a pin drop in EU from VY2ZM but until recently, Jeff
could not copy a guy on 160 from the Cape unless the European was tapping CW on
his head with a hammer. But new improvements to his listening antennas on his
small property there have helped him do much better. Plus, his shunt-fed tower
on 160 not far from the saltwater has been getting out very well. While the two
of us were DXing together on Topband, was Jeff emboldened by favorable
comparison reports from EU stations versus K3ZM at sunset? Might he try to
make a serious effort in the ARRL 160? Now that he can hear better and has a
loud signal in EU. . .
In the meantime, I am licking my chops down at K3ZM. This is my big chance to
try and win the contest that has eluded me for years. I even mention as much
to Jeff in an email. It has not even occurred to me that K1ZM might make a
serious effort from the old big station on Cape Cod. (You have to see the
place. The view from the top of the main tower is breathtaking). He can’t
beat me from that postage stamp! Some of the greens at St. Andrews have more
square footage. There is no way he can hear as well as I can. And those good
reports at sunset were just lucky. It wasn’t even dark down here yet. . .
The contest begins promptly at 2200Z. And the first station to answer my CQ is
none other than K1ZM! Yup. That confirms it. He is just going to have some
fun in the contest and watch me try to win for the first time. I would have my
hands full with the likes of AA1K (who has won this contest head-to-head versus
VY2ZM), K1DG potentially, and others.
For me, the contest starts out okay. I am getting a flurry of calls from EU
and I do a decent job of working the 130-per-hour callers from North America
while I still try to pay attention to the callers from EU (lack of sympathy
from the Midwest noted). But the signal levels from EU are low, and the QSB is
amazing. I would like to have worked more EU’s at my sunset opening but I am
encouraged by what appear to be good conditions going to the west. As usual,
by midnight zulu there is little action left in EU but calls are coming in
nicely from all across NA. Tons of callers from the West Coast. I keep an eye
on how many hours I can go without letting the cumulative average per hour fall
below 100, and this year was the best ever. After 10 hours, I had 989 QSOs.
But the opening to EU for their sunrise yielded weak signals with huge QSB. It
became clear right away that this year was worse than last year in this respect.
At least it was quiet and I had a lovely frequency. There was no noise. My
multiplier count held in there but was unremarkable. At bedtime Saturday
morning, I had only 133 EU’s in the log but I had 1,096 QSO’s. While the
country count was only 34, I did have 77 states and provinces. My score at
this point was 288,600 which seemed low to me, mostly from the weak country
total and fewer EU contacts.
After getting some sleep, I chatted with the XYL back home on Saturday. She
likes to follow my effort by looking at the spotting activity. “Uh, you had
better keep at it and not slack off,” she cautioned me. “What?” I said.
“Well, you are at best in third place in the spotting activity behind your
friend AA1K and, wait for it. . . K1ZM.”
“What?!” I said.
“Yeah. Guess he’s not going to let his pissant younger brother walk away
without some competition.”
He couldn’t resist.
Okay. Fine, then. It’s a ZM throw-down! Bring it on.
I was back on the air by 2:15 PM local time Saturday and made my first contact
at 1920Z. I started calling CQ by 1940Z and did not leave the operating
position for any reason until 0800Z when it was sunrise at G3.
My sunset opening to EU was a terrible disappointment. I think I only worked 7
EU’s during this time. Many doubts began to creep in. “He has more spots
than you.”
Fine. That’s what I would expect. I had launched into a long explanation to
the XYL about Jeff’s omni-directional antenna versus my highly directional
array (which seemed more profound to me than to her, I believe). But I began
to feel that I was behind. Maybe Jon is kicking butt up the coastline.
Then I was being bothered by some key-thumping from, of all people, one of our
Topband regulars who was just above me in frequency. I did all that I could to
alleviate it, and then I realized that I could make him vanish. I turned off
the second receiver (which was in Diversity mode) and used my phasing box in
combination with the two highly-directive receiving arrays that I was listening
on and completely nulled him out. Gone!
Just at the point where I was getting bruises from patting myself on the back,
I started getting huge noise on one of those listening arrays. Apparently, it
was rain static. We had an impressive storm come through Saturday evening.
Now I was back to trying to copy EU’s through the key thumping and I was
getting nowhere.
Despair began to set in. I felt I was lost and was convinced that I was
behind. This was my big chance.
I made the conscious decision to plow forward. The EU opening was toast and
was now done. From midnight zulu on, I worked as hard as I could on everything
else. I pointed the beam at the Gulf region. I worked every ham in the great
state of Alabama and the Republic of Texas. I worked everybody in AZ but Barry
Goldwater. If I could just get a normal opening to EU at their sunrise, it
could be a game-changer.
That is exactly what happened. I began filling in the few missing NA
multipliers and then the EU’s woke up. I pointed my XMIT antenna toward EU
at about 0345Z and left it there until nearly 0800Z. Some of the EU stations
were of normal strength (very readable) but so many were mere ghosts. I
strained mightily to copy their call signs. Many, many fills were required. I
had to give up on quite a number of them to allow a QSO with another region of
EU that had spotlight propagation at that instant. I had all available
listening capabilities trained on EU as I fought to copy the weak signals. The
storm brought QRN that sometimes was peaking S3 to S5, but it was possible to
fill the missing call letters between the noise peaks. Without the QRN from
the storm, the S meter on the K3 with the 250 hz filter on was barely
flickering at S1.
It seemed like more at the time, because it was really hard work, but I added
another 105 EU QSOs on the second night for a total of 238 for the whole
event.
In the meantime, my country total was inching upward. After the sun was up in
EU, I was delighted to be called by Roger, VK4YB. Also got HK1 and YV4 and
others. Never heard KL7RA even thought I tried to imagine it a few times!
Missed VO1, AK and of course VE8. Never heard a JA. But I worked a UA9 on
Saturday night! Wow. First in a few years! I was not among the ZS2 crowd.
Too bad. They usually rock right into here.
I kept on going with gusto long after EU faded. For some reason, my energy
level was much higher at 1000Z on Sunday morning versus the night before. I
think I began to get excited.
Kept going until about 1300Z then pulled the plug. This was my most determined
effort in any contest to date.
I continue to be impressed by the fact that K5ZD and K1AR go out of their way
to provide a few QSOs in these tests.
In the end, I was very hopeful of my results. But you just never know.
Sometimes, superior operating ability, experience, and knowledge of the band
and the DX stations who are active there can make the difference. I certainly
was looking over my shoulder for the second half of the weekend.
Since I do not know the outcome, I suppose there are at least two possible
endings to this story. It is either:
“Obee Wan Kenobi has taught you well. But you are not a Jedi yet!”
Or perhaps from Bull Durham:
“Get a hit, Crash!”
“Shut up, kid.”
Merry Christmas to all.
73,
Peter K3ZM
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