ARRL 10-Meter Contest
Call: VP5D
Operator(s): N0VD
Station: VP5JM
Class: SO Mixed LP
QTH: Provo
Operating Time (hrs): 21
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
CW: 648 53
SSB: 867 55
-------------------
Total: 1515 108 Total Score = 584,010
Club: Pikes Peak DX Group
Comments:
What an interesting weekend. In the words of Forrest Gump, "that's all I got ta
say about that". I didn't know what to expect and had no real expectations. I
was told that the guys that were at the Hamlet two weeks earlier for CQWW CW
managed less than 100 Qs on 10m. I thought well, if that's the case so be it,
there are other bands to operate on if the propagation is a bust.
I had planned to be SO HP. A few months ago I bought a small amp that could be
packed in a carry on just for this trip. I gave it to a friend of mine to
"stiffen" it up a bit and bring it up to snuff. It performed quite well before
the contest on the lower bands but it never occurred to me to give it a smoke
test on 10m. Boy, what a mistake that was! An hour before the contest I went
to get everything ready for the contest. I had only made one QSO on 10m during
the week prior to the contest so I had no idea what I was about to find out.
Anything over 15 watts drive produced an enormous amount of grid current. How
can this be? Everything works fine on the other bands. Double check this,
double check that and the other thing - nope. No matter what combination of
things I tried, no dice - massive grid current. Well, I didn't come all this
way to not do a contest, so low power it was.
Friday night started off with a BANG. The short E Skip to FL up through VA was
fantastic. I started about 15 minutes into the contest and in the first 90
minutes I had over 200 Qs in the log. Wow, I thought - I sure hope this kind of
rate can hold out. However, all good things must come to an end. By 02:30 UTC
the band had given up the ghost and I was at 233 Qs. Good enough, I'll call it
a night and decided to mosey on down to the low bands for some morning EU
sunrise stuff and take my mind off 10M.
Saturday morning came around and I was up at 11:00 UTC. Band was completely
dead. Ok, I'll try 12:00 UTC - band still dead. Finally, at 14:07 Saturday my
first QSO was in the log, but not after a lot of yelling and screaming. Oh boy,
this is going to be a long day I thought. The early hours were spent looking
around for mults since there wasn't anything to run yet. I quickly realized how
tough LP can be. I heard several mults that would call CQ, I'd answer and
they'd call CQ again. Over the course of the weekend I probably lost 15-20
mults because they either couldn't hear me or the NA pile was too big to break.
That in itself was frustrating.
There was a small opening to the US for a couple of hours on Saturday and I
found that I could run on CW but had a very difficult time holding a run freq on
SSB. Guys would edge in next to me on both sides and before long I couldn't
hear anything except the strong signals. So most of my time Saturday was spent
down on CW attempting to maximize points since that's were I seemed to have my
best luck. About 18:00 UTC the band nearly closed with the exception of an odd
SA station here and there. I could only hope that I would get another E Skip
opening to the US later that evening. By 01:00 UTC Sunday, the band was done
for the day and I was at 658 Qs. I thought well, if I get to 800 on Sunday, I
would consider that OK and call it good.
Sunday morning came and I started hearing activity a little earlier in the day.
Early on it was mostly mults, but things did pick up to the US. Again I found
it tough to hold a run freq on SSB so I spent most of my time down on CW. Up to
this point my ration was about 2/3 CW, 1/3 SSB. Somewhere around 18:00 I
realized I had not been on SSB in a while. So I took a quick look up there and
found LOTS of US stations across the band. I thought I'll try a run again.
Wow, from 18:00 to 21:00 the band had cracked wide open and I was hearing New
England to Florida to Washington to California and everything in between. I had
three hours of nearly 200+ Qs back to back to back. I had passed my 800 QSO
mark, then 1000, then 1250. Holy cow, now we're cookin'! I ran the band out
which finally closed at 21:30 UTC Sunday. By 22:00 UTC I could count the number
of signals on the band on one hand. I figured it was what it was and I called
it a contest.
This one was full of highlights and lowlights. One of the highlights was
K1ER/KH6 call me at the tail end of another Q. Our whole exchange must have
been pretty humorous to those listening. Biggest lowlight was hearing all of
those missed mults because they just couldn't hear me. Only had two PAC guys in
the log. No VK/ZL, no JA, less than a dozen EU and only a couple of AF. SA was
also noticeably lighter this year compared to what I normally see from Colorado.
But that may just be the QTH difference.
All in all it was a great contest - certainly a much more enjoyable experience
than from my home QTH. Thanks to everybody that gave me a call. Without you it
would be all for not. See you next year!
Kelly - N0VD / VP5D
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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