North American QSO Party, CW - January
Call: N7WA
Operator(s): N7WA
Station: N7WA
Class: Single Op LP
QTH:
Operating Time (hrs): 10
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 7 4
80: 53 19
40: 303 44
20: 350 45
15: 123 30
10: 3 1
-------------------
Total: 839 149 Total Score = 125,011
Club: Western Washington DX Club
Team: Brass Pounding Salmon
Comments:
I have missed this contest for various reasons over the past several years.
This year, when buddy N7ZG said he was sick and we couldn't do a planned
Multi-op, I took that as a sign from above to go all-in with a single op.
I even convinced a few locals to form a team (Brass Pounding Salmon).
I enjoy this test and this occurrence did not disappoint (well 10M wasn't
any good but then I didn't expect it to be). Fifteen started out with a
bang and my first hour was just short of 100 Q's. That was to be the general
range of each hour (above and below) until the last couple hours. I watched
ten meters with a bandscope and even called a couple times on the second
radio.
Three local Q's were the result. I finally decided watching the bandscope was
too distracting (I was mostly chasing artifacts from my own CQing on 15M) and
shut it down.
When 15M slowed down, I knew there was a party already waiting on 20M and
managed to find a space to squeeze in. What a blast and it was solid for
several hours. When 20M slowed just a bit, I didn't want to be late for the
party on 40M and found, it too, also in full force when I arrived.
I had planned on a break about this time but decided at this point that I
was going to run the full 10 hours straight through. That may have affected my
80/160M scores but when your rate is going gang-busters, that's what the
fun is all about. Plus, 80M is my weakest antenna link in the station and
it wasn't going to be pretty anyway.
Forty was strong for three hours but I knew I had to start doing some 80M.
I ran out into the cold and switch the 80M antenna to the non-40M radio and
looked for stations while running on 40M (though slowing). That helped
and with 60 minutes I switched to 80M full time. The rate wasn't fast but
I was surprised at the strong signals that heard me on my vertical across
the country. Of course, there were no fast runs on 80M so I used my spare
time to S&P on 40M and picked up a few more to finally get me past the
300Q mark (a personal goal).
I had allocated 15 minutes to 160M so I ran outside and adjusted the
80M to 160M. I messed up. For some reason, the KX3 (which just happened
to end up as the 160M radio) was at 5 watts and I didn't notice until
I realized I had worked Montana at QRP levels (good ears to K7BG).
<sigh>
I did CQ at a full 100 watts for the remaining 10 minutes for a few more
mults (though no WA).
This is a great test. One day, all bands, everybody at the same power and
mults on each band. It's fun to work a Q on fifteen and be able to use that
info later on 80M when it's tougher copy (I don't use history files). I
apologize to the 150YUKON station. My brain just could not wrap around that
callsign without multiple repeats even though he was FB copy. Nice to
meet up again with locals and not-so-locals. Was amazed that some states did
not show up on any band while DX was on most every band.
I can't figure out the SO2R approach for this test. Most of the time, the rate
is too high (for me) to be looking elsewhere for Q's. Then my antenna
switching
isn't flexible enough to put any antenna on either radio. The antenna
switching
thing will be resolved when I get my 2x6 switch finished (half built on the
bench).
Lots of fun!
cheers
dink, n7wa
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