ARRL DX Contest, CW
Call: P40W
Operator(s): W2GD
Station: P40W
Class: SOAB LP
QTH: Aruba
Operating Time (hrs): 40
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 247 52
80: 525 58
40: 996 61
20: 1281 61
15: 1121 58
10: 485 43
-------------------
Total: 4655 333 Total Score = 4,649,346
Club: Frankford Radio Club
Comments:
K3S 100W + Win-Test Logger
160M Vertical Dipole - 55' Vertical
160/80 Inverted V @ 60 feet
80M Half-Square
F12 Delta 240 @ 68 feet
40M Inverted V
F12 C31XR @ 60 feet
F12 C3 @ 60 feet
Beverage RX antennas: NE, N, NW
W O W! The 2.5 hours of openings to the USA on ten meters made everything
wonderful this weekend. What does VoCap know anyway!
Kept my focus on running this time (except for a few hours Saturday night when I
really lost all focus). Had higher rates and operated fewer hours which
produced a 5% score increase over 2017.
With two HP stations on Aruba (P40E and P49Y), moving stations for a multiplier
seemed more difficult than past years. I yearn for the days of being the only
active P4. But a HUGE thank you to all of you who were so kind to QSY. The
difficult sections were LB, NF, NE, ND, SD, and VE4. Happened on VY1AAA on 40
and 20 just by luck (no cluster callouts at the time).
Conditions first night were somewhat disturbed or just plain weird. Got off to
a slow start and had to play catch up till dawn Saturday to make up the earlier
losses. Slept two hours first night.
This is the point in the sunspot cycle when 15 meters shines down here. With
limited EU and JA exposure in North America, virtually every CQ is answered and
the pileups were massive at times. Thank you to whomever stopped by to tell me
10 meters was open on Saturday morning - I was in the middle of a 200 type hour
on 15M at that moment - again thanks for the heads up!
The low bands were very quiet all weekend - no t-storm static at all but the man
made noise keeps increasing as they build more and more houses around me here in
Santa Cruz. The K3S noise blanker was particularly effective on one such noise
that came and went all day both days but fortunately and mysteriously stopped
after 5 p.m. local.
Enjoyed the socializing this week with the team at P40E (K9RS, N3DXX, AA5B and
AA7V plus winter resident K2LE/P40LE) and my neighbor P49Y (Andy, AE6Y is 1.2 Km
away as the crow flies). Again, the K3S radio makes being so close to P49Y/P40L
a virtual non-issue but their signal looks HUGE on the P3 scope.
Caught the 10M opening Sunday afternoon at just the right time. But there was an
RF brick wall to the west right along the Rocky Mountains that was absolute at
LP.
After spending several hours hacking a path through very thick cactus on
Thursday, extended my N/S beverage another 200 feet and happily it was a huge
improvement.
On the negative side, while prepping one of my two towers for routine painting
discovered the 1/4 inch thick steel torque arms and guy brackets on one Rohn 25G
tower were almost corroded through - oops! Made emergency back up repairs
Friday afternoon. Got caught in the rain while on the tower - again.
Post contest breakfast at a Dutch pancake house near P49V this morning of all
seven active contesters on Aruba was a total joy (and the pancakes were great
too).
Thanks again to my Aruban hosts for putting up with my periodic radio invasions
and insanity.
CU for WPX CW in May and then many of you at WRTC 2018 in Germany.
73,
John, W2GD
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