ARRL DX Contest, CW
Call: W6YX
Operator(s): N7MH
Station: W6YX
Class: SO Unlimited LP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 33:30
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 26 13
80: 98 29
40: 320 84
20: 581 101
15: 128 47
10: 13 6
-------------------
Total: 1166 280 Total Score = 979,440
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
I was mulling the idea of a low power multi-single for this contest but just got
too busy in the week before to organize an effort. I held out hope that maybe
some of our contesters would drop by and join in so I spent all but the last 13
hours abiding by M/S band change rules. K6TJ and AA6XV made appearances but
neither was interested in operating.
After taking care of work and home obligations I finally made it to the shack
about 30 minutes before the starting gun. I hooked up cables from my SO2R set-up
to the antenna switches at the shack, started up the computer and radios, got
CC-User running and edited the spotting filters to CW after being set up for WPX
RTTY most recently.
Then the contest started and after a brief listen on 10 I moved to 15. I had
both radios on 15 with the 6-element Telrex beaming Asia and the 5-element
HyGain beaming South America. I worked XE1AY as my first QSO and while doing so
noticed that the SWR was 5:1 on that radio. After trying different
bands/antennas with the same result I replaced the coax jumper between the
bandpass filter and antenna switches to bring the SWR to normal. The SWR on the
other radio was also high, 19:1, and ended up being the jumper between the radio
and bandpass filter.
I suspect that some of the connectors/cables got overheated or sustained arcing
during WPX RTTY when they were subjected to high power at nearly a 50% duty
cycle while running SO2R with dual CQing (2BSIQ).
After replacing the coax jumpers I finally started making QSOs again, 15 minutes
after the start. I CQed toward Asia on one radio while clicking and pouncing on
the other. With low power and poor band conditions I got no answers to my CQs so
I began to dual click-and-pounce, choosing spots appropriate to the beam heading
of each radio/antenna.
There was nothing new to work on 15 by 0055 so I moved both radios to 20 and
continued with the dual click-and-pounce toward Asia and South America, first
working all the workable mults then everyone else. My best 30-minute (100/h) and
60-minute (89/h) rates of the contest both overlapped this dual click-and-pounce
session. I was even able to interleave QSOs but tended to forget to copy the
first exchange and would be forced to ask for a repeat. I reverted to the more
normal run/C&P SO2R on 20 at 0200.
The rest of the evening was more click-and-pounce on 40 and 80 but mostly just
with one radio since I didn't have two gain antennas on these bands. Things got
really slow around 0600. Europe was hard to work on 40, impossible on 80 with
low power. I'd worked most of the Caribbean and South American stations on 40
and those whose pileups I could break on 80. I felt too burned out to make the
trek to the tower base and flip the manual switch to get a 160 antenna so I
headed home.
I returned just after 1200 and flipped the 160 switch on my way to the shack. I
was only able to work 3 mults on 160, JA, KH6 and UA0. All the Caribbeans were
gone. I thought it was odd that I didn't have any RBN spots on 160 but it wasn't
until Saturday evening that I realized that 160 had been disabled in our
spotting filters for WPX RTTY and I'd forgotten to add it when setting up
CC-User.
I clicked through the spots on 80 working mults and then everyone that could
hear me and then ran for a while. Then on to 40 doing the same thing. I tried
calling several EU stations long path but none of them heard me. I was surprised
when 7Z1SJ came right back to me. I listened for long path stations on 80 but
didn't hear any and assumed that long path Qs would be challenging with low
power.
I went to 20 at 1500 and then alternated between 15 and 20 with the dual
click-and-pounce same-band SO2R. I worked most European countries that I heard
on 20 with the notable exceptions of SV and SV9, both with loud signals but just
could not bust the pileups (ES and Z3 were weak and CQed in my face). Never saw
a spot for Z60A which I realize now is because I hadn't updated the CTY.DAT on
CC-User.
15 was all Caribbean and South America with a sprinkling of CT3 and EA8. Finally
EU appeared with CU4DX after 1900. I heard a couple of weak F stations close to
a direct path and heard an I on skew path to the southeast but all were too weak
to be workable with low power. Just before 2200 I worked a couple each of OH and
SM to make a total of 5 EU worked on 15.
I listened on 10 regularly but never heard anything except for N6BV CQing until
the 2200 hour when I managed to work KH6LC off the back of one of our fixed
antennas pointing southeast. I got a ? out of KH6J but they just could not copy
me even when I beamed in their direction with our ailing Pro67.
When 20 opened to JA I began CQing there and working spots on 20 on the other
radio. 15 had a few stations I'd already worked and CQing didn't raise anything
there so I stayed on 20 until 0100 when I made a brief excursion to 40 to work a
few mults then back to 20.
I drove home at 0200 to briefly join a dinner party hosted by my daughters and
then was back at the radios shortly after 0300. I spent a half hour trying to
work mults on 40 and 80 and only made 1 QSO on each band. It was a tough slog
working anyone with low power. I made sure to try 160 regularly but only picked
up a few Caribbeans. I went home again at 0600.
I bruised or cracked some ribs on my left side a few weeks ago so every time I
try to roll over in bed it wakes me up. No need to set an alarm to wake up and
get back to the radios by 1100. This was an hour earlier than the first night
and 160 and 80 were still open to the Caribbean and South America.
I abandoned any hope of a multi-single and stopped abiding by the band change
rules. I mostly CQed on 40 on one radio and moved between 80 and 160 on the
other radio, occasionally dual-CQing. I managed to work S53F on 40 long path but
the other EU stations heard were either already worked or couldn't hear me.
I moved one radio to 20 at 1420 and worked a few South American and Caribbean
stations. Around 1450 I could work into EA and F. My run on 40 was drying up. I
tried CQing on 20 to EU a couple of times but after an initial burst of callers
I'd go 10 minutes with no one calling. Clicking on spots was more productive.
Moving the second radio to 15 just before 1530 picked up VP9, ZS and D4. The
rest of the morning was spent trying to work mults on 20 and 15, working anyone
else I could, and occasionally checking 10.
Finally at 1945 I saw a blip on the P3 on 10 meters high in the band at 28055.
It was PJ2T. The band was open for at least an hour with several South
Americans, ZL and KH6 worked. PJ4A was loud for a brief time but didn't seem to
be listening as both K6XX and I tried calling with no response. I noticed that
most of the stations I could hear on 10 weren't being picked up by the RBN so I
posted spots to the packet network, hoping that might lure others up to 10.
The last few hours were spent with one radio on 20 calling CQ beaming JA. The
other radio was mostly on 20 working spots. I saw some spots for JAs on 15 so I
tried CQing there but didn't get any calls. I worked a couple of weak JAs but
then the band seemed to die.
Near the end of the contest I saw a JA spotted on 15 and was surprised by how
strong the signal was. I immediately started CQing on 15 and managed to work 15
JAs and a DU in the final 17 minutes. I finished with a total of 23 JAs on 15,
most in that final run.
On Sunday I happened to tune across V31TR asking a midwest station for a fill on
the state. They kept doubling with each other and finally V31TR sent the other
station's call followed by NIL. I hadn't yet worked V31TR on any band but
finally managed to get through a few minutes later. I deliberately sent my state
twice in the exchange to avoid having the same thing happen to me. The immediate
response was W6YX NIL. I then repeated my exchange several times but was covered
up by other callers. I'm now wondering if he mistakenly hit his NIL key instead
of a QSL key. Not being offered a chance to repeat my exchange seemed quite
unusual. After that experience I had no desire to call on any other band.
Thanks to all for the Qs and for the extra repeats sometimes needed to copy my
low power. Extra kudos to LZ9W, QRP with 5 W, who tried to move me from 40 to
80. I listened but no copy... we've only worked LZ once on 80 from our station
and that was when we had a working 4-square and we both were running high
power.
73,
-Mike, N7MH
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
______________________________________________
3830 mailing list
3830@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/3830
|