ARRL 160-Meter Contest - 2022
Call: KB4KBS
Operator(s): KB4KBS
Station: KB4KBS
Class: SO Unlimited HP
QTH: GEORGIA
Operating Time (hrs): 10:00
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 214 Sections = 49 Countries = 2 Total Score = 22,134
Club: South East Contest Club
Comments:
First Session Notes:
My first really serious foray into contesting on the “Gentleman’s Band”
did not get off to a great start. I was about 10 minutes late getting to the
radio and was shocked to hear so many Gentlemen! I decided quickly that this
was going to be a SOUHP effort focused on needed WAS states & provinces and
maybe even some DX (while technically 300W is HP, is it really?).
Before I was even 60 minutes into the contest, I had been interrupted twice -
once for the dog to visit nature, and once to retrieve Grub Hub food from the
front porch. The next hour was consumed by a trip to Walgreens to pick up a
prescription for the XYL.
I finally did get some focused time on the radio, and by 22:30L I had worked all
the mults I could hear and many others include PJ2T and one of the spotted C6
stations.
After some sleep, I grabbed a Red Bull at 05:00L and got in another 2-1/2 hours
before sunrise. During this window I did a lot of running (and slid the power up
a little more to about 400W). I think, based on the barely audible/intelligible
signals, I’m likely “over-transmitting my receiver”. Total Time: 6 hours
Second Session Notes:
More of the same, did some more running and had a few runs >25/hr. but mostly
the same sections I had already worked - I did pick up NE and VE2 however. Added
another 82 Qs to the log. If I had a really competitive station, I surely could
have done more, but didn't really try to work everyone on the band (if I didn't
work you, its nothing personal).
As the contest was ending, and after being frustrated all contest with the
receiver clipping the first characters of people calling me as I unkeyed, I
finally figured out that my CW Delay setting was at 1000ms (range 0-3000,
default 250) I scaled it back to 500 and that made a lot of difference. When
sending 15-18WPM, a longer hang time keeps the rig from unkeying between words
and during pauses - something I worried about with the external keying of the
amplifier. At 20+ WPM, its not such a problem.
Final Tally
214 Qs
49 Sections
2 DX
22,134 claimed pts
The notables:
Clean sweep of 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, only needed PR for 4 - was told there were several
on, never saw them spotted or ran across them.
Only ONE, ONS, and GTA in VE3-land.
Have added MT toward 160M WAS.
Final Thoughts:
It’s pretty evident what I can hear is pretty limited to the Central and
Eastern CONUS. Spots for VE2, VY1, W6, & W7 were unreadable with my home
brew, small lot-compromised antenna. All in all though it was a nice contest to
take for a spin. I look forward to the next night-owl band event.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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