CT Hrs QSO's Q Pts States Countries Score
Totals 34 1182 4507 56 58 513,798
Equipment: My TS-930S and Frank's 3-1000Z, 5 580' Beverage RX systems
at 45 (phased pair), 90, 165, 265 and 330 degrees with preamps. TX
antennas were a 4-square (mainly for Europe) and elevated GP's to the
West (US and Pacific/JA), South (seldom used) and Northeast (never used).
Frank's 4SQ works super in the NE quadrant but it is blocked by many
towers in other directions, so I usually left it to the NE and used the
other GP's for other directions.
Comments:
This was originally going to be a multiop effort but we had some
cancellations so I decided to do it myself. Earlier in the week, I thought
we were going to have both excellent propagation and low QRN but the Weather
Channel was wrong and we had that nasty warm humid air move up from the Gulf
to separate the men from the boys. This was to be a contest of receiving
ability which it usually is anyway!
After getting set up Thursday night and getting a key to his house
(since nobody would be home Friday afternoon when the contest began), I
came over around noon to familiarize myself with the station and practice
on CT9 a little.
The strategy from the East Coast is a little different than from
Colorado...it's called RUN EUROPE when the band is open that way and RUN
WEST when Europe is gone. This shows up in the Continent Statistics as
follows: NA-959, SA-3, EU-236, AF-2 and OC-4.
Friday night the noise was indeed bad (about S8 to 9 even with a
pair of phased Beverages toward Europe!) which eliminated most but the top
1 or 2 tier Europeans. When I listened West, I really felt sorry for the
guys in Texas who must have been right in the middle of that mess. I
could tell that propagation was very good to Europe but there was just so
much noise that it was impossible to hear the weaker ones calling. Sorry
for being such an Alligator to all those who were calling me!
Saturday morning was interesting with a brief opening to JA. I
answered 7 successfully and even tried a little CQing with no success (I
guess I momentarily visualized I was back in Colorado but it didn't work!)
By the time I had worked my last JA at 1227, I only had a total of 618
Q's and was missing many states. Normally, I would QRT in Colorado around
an hour past sunrise but SURPRISE...on the East Coast there is a lot of
activity during the day. I finally quit at 1553 after adding another 64
North Americans. I'm sure I could have continued to log 15-20 per hour
but decided I better get some sleep to be fresh for the evening.
I started again at 1930 and kept adding North Americans and the
very occasional European. The first was worked at 2249 but conditions were
way down compared to the night before. Around 0200, I was startled when
EK6GC appeared on my frequency! I worked him, left the frequency and
began to frantically try to find another frequency. After working 4X4NJ
in a pileup, I found a reasonably clear frequency and focused on Europe
with several new multipliers added. Signals were GOOD and I was now
hopeful this would continue through European sunrise since the band was
now very quiet with only an occasional long duration static burst. It
was not to be and the band dropped down after about 30 minutes of excite-
ment.
I kept plugging away until around 0530 which began one of the
strangest propagation experiences I've ever seen on 160. You could
actually hear the band on the margin of opening and closing to Europe!
One minute signals would be good and literally seconds later they would
vanish. I lost several QSO's with guys who answered and then vanished
by the time I sent them their exchange (1 or 2 seconds!). This continued
until my last EU around 0830 but I was able to log a bunch of 10 pointers
and several multipliers. It's too bad we did not have Friday night's
propagation combined with Saturday's low QRN levels. Frank later told
me he checked the Auroral Oval pictures on Internet and it showed that
there was much more activity on Saturday night than Friday night even
though WWV's A and K numbers were comparable. Figure that one out!
I could not work any JA's but I heard several of them which were
down about 2-3 S units from Saturday and it appeared that only W4's
were able to work them. I did catch a couple of VK's but never did hear
KL7 during the entire contest. I continued to work domestic guys until
the end of the contest at 1600. There seemed to be a flurry of activity
in the last 30 minutes which must have been caused by some of the contest
clubs telling everyone on Packet to get on and pass out some QSO's.
All in all it was great fun and a challenge as usual. I probably
spent 95% of my time CQing which seemed to pay off but I'm sure I missed
many multipliers. Thanks to Frank for the use of his incredibly well-
engineered station...everything worked flawlessly! I'm still waiting for
a REALLY good weekend when this contest will fall on 2 days with BOTH good
propagation and low noise. This year we had good conditions on Friday and
a quiet band on Saturday but never the magic combination...maybe next year!
73,
Bill W4ZV
--
FAQ on WWW: http://www.contesting.com/3830faq.html
Submissions: 3830@contesting.com
Administrative requests: 3830-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems: owner-3830@contesting.com
Sponsored by: Akorn Access, Inc & N4VJ / K4AAA
|