Score: 243,360 Hours: 21.5 QTH: Central Massachusetts
QSOs/Countries/Sections: 702/42/54 (missed ID,NE,SD)
(heard K0HA in NE everywhere but never at the right time)
QSO Points: 2533 (3.6 points/QSO, average)
Equipment: Icom IC-765 + AL-1200 1.5kW out + CT for logging
Antenna(s): Inverted-L (more horizontal than vertical) + 6 raised
quarter-wavelength radials
800' Beverage (EU direction only)
Contact breakdown:
North America: 604 (82%)
South America: 2 (0.3%)
Europe: 129 (17.5%)
Africa/Oceania: 1 each
Story
---------------------------------
I was pretty psyched to do a contest from home again...I think I'll make a
habit of this. It's always fun to see what you can do when you're not at
a "superstation". My station definitely qualifies as "not a superstation".
I got home a little later than I wanted to on Friday....started fussing
around outside with changing from random length radials to a system of
only resonant radials on the inverted-L. This proved to be a good move.
I saw this technique work well at W3LPL's 10 years ago when we first put
up a 160m ground plane there off one of the 200' towers. Has it really
been 10 years? Anyway, got that all squared away. Took a quick walk
down the Beverage and didn't see anything wrong. But something was
just not right....it was performing strangely.
I started at 2235Z...all the fussing outside caused me to miss the start.
I didn't let it slow me down but it made me realize that I wasn't going to
put 200% into this contest. That's the other nice thing about operating
from home.....no pressure to win!
Tune around briefly and find N0NI for my first Q. I later come to find
this is ex-NC0P, a familiar call. He's pretty loud. I heard him early in
the day on Saturday,before local sunset here. Nice signal! It's search
and pounce for about 25 minutes then I found 1819 to be a good spot and
I ran there for a while. Like until 0230Z! Reasonable rate
throughout...nothing to write home about, but steady. Europeans start to
call in...SM6CPY is the first one in the log at 2347Z. The SM's were out
in force and loud all weekend! Condx the first night were good to Europe
from 0130Z right through about 0800Z. GM3YOR is the last European in the
log at 0831Z. I ended the first night with about 470 Q's.
The band was very quiet the first night...I could hear just about
everything best on the inverted-L. The Beverage was useless the first
night. Good thing it was quiet! Not wanting to tempt fate, I decided to
spend some time looking at the Beverage on Saturday.
On Saturday I did a little daytime operating, here and there, between
antenna work and other projects. During daylight you get to see who's
into the contest seriously.....sounded like AA1K,N1BB (probably at
W1KM),W2GD(as always),WW2Y(as always),K8CC,K3CR(Penn State) and W3LPL
mainly. I heard *tons* of FRC activity all weekend! I was surprised not
to hear K1ZM anywhere....Jeff, where you on a secret stealth frequency
and ultra-low-angle antenna running the world? :-)
I cleaned up some questionable splices and messed with the Beverage
feedpoint and that seemed to fix it. At least I could copy signals
now...before they were buried in crud. I may be developing a BCI-related
problem here. I need to look more closely.
Saturday night was kind of uneventful....I operated as much as I felt
like, took a lot of breaks and short naps....basically just relaxed as
much as I felt like. I started hearing what I thought were static crashes
and rain static buildup and discharge, but I think I've come to accept
that something went wrong here no Saturday while working on the antennas.
All Saturday night I fought this horrendous noise and it made copy worse
than difficult. I'll have to figure out what it is and make it go away
forever...I never want to experience that again. That's what I get for
trying to make things better.
I quit early on Sunday morning.....even slept between 1015Z and
1243Z...right through sunrise! Worked about 7 more stations starting at
1243Z and decided I had had enough. Not being serious about contests is,
uh, kind of fun!
73,
Dave
KM3T
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