ARRL DX Contest, CW - 2019
Call: NR4M
Operator(s): N3AC K7SV W0IMD NR4M K4MI N2YO N1RM AD5XI WS6X KA4RRU NY3A K4QS
K4GMH K4GM KE3X
Station: NR4M
Class: M/M HP
QTH: Central VA
Operating Time (hrs): 48
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 358 80
80: 1018 105
40: 1633 116
20: 1860 119
15: 633 96
10: 26 8
-------------------
Total: 5528 524 Total Score = 8,595,696
Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club
Comments:
*** Warning *** Long verbiage follows...
Well, as they say, 'Another one in the books'.
I found this to be an enjoyable contest, for a change. With the contest being
the next weekend after the CQ WPX RTTY contest, most of the station work we
could do was done prior to that contest. This made the week between contests
much less stressful for me.
We had some handicaps going into the contest, but, for a change, this time we
were not lacking in good operators. We have nine stations here and never seem
to have enough operators to fill all the operating positions when needed. That
is never a good thing. But, this year I believe there must have been some sort
of 'celestial alignment', which gave us a large, (and always hungry), crew.
Recently, there had been a bunch of work done to the low band receiving antennas
and it has really paid off for us. Thanks to the help of Mike, K4GMH, who made
up the PC boards, new Beverage switching boxes were built, giving us much better
antenna to antenna isolation, and reliability.
Since 4 Beverages are shared on 160, 80 and 40, receive band pass filters, were
built, or re-built, tweaked and documented. I'm a bit OCD about things and I
can attest that MANY hours of adjusting and toroid winding, were used getting
these filters 'just right'. Still can't say it was worth the effort I put into
it, but the whole low band Beverage system is working super good. The 160 - 8
circle was also an outstanding performer, and when used in diversity mode with
the Beverages, it was just plain 'awesome'.
I still have four rotators down for various reasons, which is not a good thing,
but we have plans, and are working thru the problems.
Our 40 meter OWA stack developed a high SWR condition toward the end of the RTTY
contest last weekend, We thought it was fixed mid week, but it wasn't.
Sunday afternoon, N3AC and I, went out and finally got it fixed. It was just
above freezing with about a 10 mph cold wind, but Dave climbed the tower, found
the problem and fixed it. Unfortunately, there was only about 4 hours left in
the contest when got the top antenna working again. 90% of the 40 meter
operation was done with the 100 foot OWA and the Moxon at 70 feet. Kind of
amazed we did as good as we did on 40.
This year, we had 3 ops that were new to the Goat Farm. Iian, AD5XI / M0PCB,
Steve, NY3A, and Rick, N1RM (No One Remembers Me...) joined the goat herders,
fit right in and 'hit the ground running'. It was a pleasure to have them with
us.
Because we've never really had enough ops, there is never any real 'assignment'
to a particular station. It was always determined by the particular ops
available and the operating needs. This year, we were able to have WS6X, Jim
and Dave, N3AC (recently ex KK4XX) man 160 meters almost exclusively and they
did an OUTSTANDING job. That team gave us the most countries (80) ever worked
on 160, in this contest!
Larry, K7SV, was the main guy on 80 meters. Sometime during the night the four
square became very 'mediocre'. During daylight hours , Dave, N3AC, and Ken,
K4ZW, tracked it down to a connector that had a mechanical failure. (Note to
self: ONLY, ONLY, ONLY use Amphenol...) Larry racked up a bunch of Q's using
the four square and the 4 element delta loop array strung between two 190 foot
towers. There is no second, or mult station on 80; just the one rig.
On forty meters, which can be called 'Chip's band', Chip, N2YO shared the duties
with several of the other guys, alternating between the run station and the mult
station, as they wanted. That must have worked, as they turned in a good score,
especially being a bit 'antenna challenged', with the loss of the high antenna.
Twenty meters was a work horse as usual and was in good shape most of the time.
There was one period at about 2300Z +/-, where it seemed that everything died
for a while. I was expecting some sort of solar event to have happened, but
obviously, it all worked out in the end. Many people shared the duties between
the 20 meter run and mult positions.
Fifteen was a bit tougher, as between lighting damage and ring rotator pots
skipping teeth in the gear train and losing calibration, we really didn't have
any antenna that could be easily turned. Thank goodness they were pointing at
EU. Again, many ops took turn helping out between the run and mult stations.
10 was a bit of a joke. We only made a small handful of contacts during the
whole weekend. The only exciting thing I heard on 10, was out of the
nothingness, EI7M answered our, ever continuous, lonely CQ. He was a LOUD S-7
signal, that surprised everyone. Boom/boom, in and out. He was the only EU
even heard! Maybe it was propagation of the bottom of an airliner at 35,000
feet? A one-time, 20 second propagation window?
Plenty to eat, as usual. For a snack, I bought some raw, green peanuts and made
boiled peanuts. (it's a Southern thing; you wouldn't understand...) At least,
*I* liked them. Platter of roast beef, turkey and ham sandwiches. Make a large
pot of 'contest Chili', Platter of peeled shrimp, Racks of smoked, dry rubbed
ribs, nuts, chips, cookies and such. Several ops brought things to share, so we
really had a load of foot do eat. There are rumors of Rum and Coke, but I know
nothing...
Overall, I like the propagation we encountered. Low bands seemed to really
good.
Anyway, that's the long story, and we didn't quite work WAS, even though there
were many willing and trying, to help.
73 de Steve, NR4M and the rest of the Goat Farm gang.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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