IARU HF Championship
Call: WM5R
Operator(s): WM5R
Station: N5XU
Class: SO Phone Power: HP
QTH: EM10dg
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Mults
-----------------------------------
160: 0 1 1
80: 0 19 7
40: 0 59 17
20: 0 502 59
15: 0 222 35
10: 0 175 12
-----------------------------------
Total: 0 978 131 = 394,310
Club: Central Texas DX & Contest Club (CTDXCC)
Comments:
BAND Raw QSOs Valid QSOs Points HQ Stations Zones
__________________________________________________________
160SSB 1 1 1 0 1
80SSB 19 19 43 2 5
40SSB 60 59 161 7 10
20SSB 507 502 1730 22 37
15SSB 225 222 640 15 20
10SSB 179 175 435 2 10
__________________________________________________________
Totals 991 978 3010 48 83
Claimed Score = 394,310 points
---
Station (N5XU - University of Texas ARC Club Station EM10dg)
160 - 350' long wire and 100W tuner at 70'
80 - wire dipole at 80' N-S
40 - wire dipole at 80' N-S
20 - Force 12 C-4 at 90' rotatable
15 - Force 12 C-4 at 90' rotatable
10 - Force 12 C-4 at 90' rotatable
Kenwood TS-850SAT
Heathkit SB-220
W9XT Contest Card
Optimus Pro 50MX Headset
CDE HAM-IV rotor
TR LOG 6.54
---
This was my first ever serious attempt at an all-band HF contest as a
single operator. I've done many multi-operator efforts, and I've
dabbled in a few single-band efforts, but this was my first 24-hour
single-op on multiple bands. I think it was a huge learning experience for
me.
The station I used was the club station at the University of Texas.
It's an SO1R setup in a penthouse on top of an engineering building
in the middle of campus. The air conditioner in the window couldn't
quite keep up with the equipment heat in the middle of the afternoon,
and the nearest bathroom is 350' and one flight of stairs away. It's a
true tribander and wires setup on phone, as the Force 12 C-4's 40-meter
element is tuned for CW. It's noisy, too, as we are across the street
from an electrical generation power plant, surrounded by engineering
research buildings, and there are probably 50,000 computers in a
half-mile radius of the shack. There's no way to use listening antennas
on the low bands, as the building is surrounded by parking lots, sidewalks,
and streets.
I probably wouldn't have done quite as well as I did, for a first-timer,
had it not been for pre-contest advice from George K5TR. I know I missed
out on a lot during this contest, but his advice regarding 40 meters and
the low bands was helpful - I probably wouldn't have worked any Europeans
on 40 had I not gotten there as early as I did. I think I still missed
out on a lot of low-band opportunities by not being at the right band at
the right time. On the high bands, I think I missed out on a lot of 10
meter contacts. I spent a significant amount of time there on Saturday,
but everytime I checked on K5TR, about 35 miles west of me, he was working
station after station that I could not hear. Having operated 10 meters
from his place before, I am beginning to think that the tribander at
N5XU is too high off the ground for 10 meters. It seems like there is a
"sweet spot" for single-yagi antenna systems of 1.5-2 wavelengths above
ground, which is where the K5TR antennas all are. At N5XU, the tribander
is 3 wavelengths above ground at 10 meters, which is probably too high
in general, and is definitely too high for Eskip. I felt like 20 meters
(where the antenna is 1.5 wavelengths above ground) was the best band at
N5XU, all other things being equal.
The worst part of the contest happened at 0415, when someone turned
on some piece of equipment nearby on campus. It sounded like the busines
end of a belt sander was directly attached to the antenna feedpoint.
It was S9+40 on all bands from 10 meters to at least 6 meters. So, I
spent some less than fully productive time on 40 and 80, and eventually
decided that I had to try to work the loud stuff through the noise on 20.
After an even longer time, I figured out that by pointing the tribander at
about 105 degrees, I could null out a lot of the noise and hear things.
So, I went back to CQing and started to work people, but of course the
band was open to Europe, but I was pointed at South Africa! From this,
it seems likely that the noise was across the street in the new digital
sciences building. Probably a cheap floor buffer or something. The
noise stopped around 0734, after the opening to Europe had just about
ended. It was literally the worst QRM I have ever heard up there.
Right after it ended, my rate took right off.
I made a few other mistakes, as well. I spent nearly ten minutes
cursing ZL1ANJ up and down and sideways because he couldn't hear me on
40. Eventually, I gave up on him and decided to go to 20, only to discover
that the antenna jumper was already on the tribander. Oops. I guess I
was tired. I moved it back to the 40 meter dipole and worked Martin on
the first call.... Thankfully, nothing blew up. The only equipment
difficulty I had all weekend was with the voice keyer. It would sometimes
play memory three right after memory two, which was annoying.
I never heard a Japanese station on any band other than 20 meters.
I tried and tried and tried to raise a JA on 40 by CQing and listening
split at various times over about two hours right before JA sunrise, but
I never did work a station split when calling CQ, JA or otherwise. I never
heard a JA calling CQ on 40. It was also very frustrating to hear so many
DX stations with big signals into Texas on 40 that were calling CQ over
and over with no takers, but were not listening up. I never heard JA on
15, but did work YB0A and DU1UGZ around 0840 on 15, when I was looking hard
for a JA station on that band.
NU1AW was very loud on all of the bands, and I probably could have
worked them on topband had they spent any time there. I heard W1AW/6 on
just three bands (they were loudest on 80) but couldn't work them on 40,
because just as I found them around 1055, someone told them that they were
on a net frequency and were going to be interfering with the net (never
mind that they weren't _yet_ interfering with the net, or that it would
really have been the net interfering with the W1AW/6 operation...) So,
it sounded to me like instead of moving to a new frequency (of which there
were plenty at that time of day) or suggesting to the net that they could
move to a new frequency, they just packed up and left the band an hour early.
I certainly never heard them again on 40. It was very frustrating. I
don't know why I never heard them on 15 or 10, as I have plenty of California
stations on both bands in the log.
There are certain aspects of the headquarters stations in this contest
that I really don't like. Besides the obvious, which is that it greatly
tilts the scoring in favor of the Europeans and the east-coast/midwest
USA stations, it seems to bring out generally bad behavior in Europe. I
listened to DA0HQ being heavily jammed (I'm guessing by other Europeans)
for hours. I heard at least four European HQ stations just start calling
CQ on top of non-HQ stations and ignore their complaints. Plus, out of
some sense of national pride, I'm sure a lot of them are running way high
power. One European HQ station in particular could be heard for an hour
before the band opened up enough for them to hear me.
I had a few interesting DX stations call in. OJ0U on 20 might even
be a new country for me. UQ1D was pretty cool, as was P29IO, both of
which were also on 20. The vast majority of my QSOs, though, were to
W/VE stations.
I had a really good time.
---
2001 IARU HF World Championship - WM5R (@ N5XU)
HOUR 160SSB 80SSB 40SSB 20SSB 15SSB 10SSB TOTAL ACCUM
---- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ----- -----
12 0 0 0 79 11 0 90 90
13 0 0 0 5 57 0 62 152
14 0 0 0 35 19 6 60 212
15 0 0 0 1 31 16 48 260
16 0 0 0 0 18 31 49 309
17 0 0 0 0 11 27 38 347
18 0 0 0 0 21 18 39 386
19 0 0 0 2 7 19 28 414
20 0 0 0 0 10 25 35 449
21 0 0 0 1 6 33 40 489
22 0 0 0 40 9 0 49 538
23 0 0 0 35 10 0 45 583
0 0 0 0 33 10 0 43 626
1 0 0 2 40 0 0 42 668
2 0 0 2 40 0 0 42 710
3 0 4 10 22 0 0 36 746
4 0 0 18 14 0 0 32 778
5 0 2 9 6 0 0 17 795
6 0 7 2 21 0 0 30 825
7 0 0 5 41 0 0 46 871
8 0 0 0 30 2 0 32 903
9 1 0 5 9 0 0 15 918
10 0 2 6 8 0 0 16 934
11 0 4 0 40 0 0 44 978
TOTAL 1 19 59 502 222 175
---
2001 IARU HF World Championship - WM5R (@N5XU)
Zone QSOs
---------
1. 08 396
2. 07 146
3. 06 109
4. 28 59
5. 45 47
6. 04 24
7. 29 17
8. 27 14
9. 14 13
10. 11 13
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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