ARRL DX Contest, CW - 2023
Call: N1EN
Operator(s): N1EN
Station: N1EN
Class: SOUAB LP
QTH:
Operating Time (hrs): 28:49
OpMode: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 15 12
80: 136 48
40: 366 69
20: 489 81
15: 500 80
10: 436 73
-------------------
Total: 1942 363 Total Score = 2,114,838
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
My wife and I like to say that we have manic-depressive luck. That certainly
manifested this weekend.
In my day job I build and maintain a simulation of a multinational insurance
company's finances. I'm in an update cycle now, with a major deliverable due
next week. I thought I had everything planned so that a job that takes about
60 hours to run would kick off Friday afternoon, leaving me plenty of time to
set up for the contest, and no guilty conscience for taking the weekend off to
contest.
Unfortunately, those plans went sideways. I won't get into the details of what
went wrong...but suffice it to say that I was scrambling most of Friday, and got
to an almost-stopping point 5 minutes before contest start. (Almost-stopping
point = I had to occasionally move/click a mouse on the work computer all Friday
evening.) That was the first instance of depressive luck.
Then the contest started, and the manic side of my luck kicked in: I had my
best contest start ever. For 90 minutes, I probably the best rate that my
little pistol station has ever had.
Cue the depressive luck again. There was a significant gust of wind...and the
my reception on the low bands disappeared. So I took an hour to make emergency
antenna repairs...in the cold/dark/wind, complicated by not being able to find a
couple of items in my antenna kit. It wasn't a great fix -- I'll need to take
a day after my project at work is done to do it right -- but I got through the
rest of the contest.
The next day, the manic side of my luck was in force again. 10 and 15 meters
were productive. About a week ago, I had thought I might set myself a goal of
2000 Q's, but I scaled that back, first due to the forecasted G2 storm (which
never materialized), and then due to the X2 flare before contest start (which
apparently only supercharged the ionosphere). So, I had N1MM showing hourly
goals that would get me to 1500 Q's. But that pessimism turned out to be
unwarranted. Heck, Saturday as sunset approached, it was worthwhile for me to
work a bunch of JAs on 15m...something that's almost unheard of for my little
pistol station, where trying to get a single JA multiplier is usually a
struggle.
Sunday: Depressive luck manifested again, when the XYL summoned me downstairs to
deal with a plumbing issue at prime time for working Europe on the high bands.
Had it not been for the antenna issue and the plumbing issue, I would have
broken 2000Q's. Still, I had a lot of fun, and breaking 2m points is nothing to
sneeze at.
Station:
Flex 6600
2 Fan dipoles @ 15m for 10-40m tx
Carolina Windom @ 20m for 80m tx
Inverted L with folded counterpoise for 160m tx and 20-80m rx
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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