Raw Score....even though everything cooked well..
160 80 40 20 15 10 all
Q's 8 75 460 693 699 86 2021
Mults 5 38 49 92 90 23 297
TR says score is 1,773,981
Class of Entry- Single Op, All-Band, Hi-Power, No-Assist
Op-W7EW 1 radio-Yaesu FT1000MP 1 amp-Alpha
Time on- 45 hours
Location-Oregon on top of hill that rapidly slopes 800' to valley floor
Antennae: 10M-6/6..40' & 90' plus Log Periodic..all DXE
15M-6/6..60' & 100' " " " " "
20M-5/5..50" & 110" " " " " "
40M 3 Element full Size DXE at 90'
80M 3 Element MSquared at 90'
160M 120' Rohn 25 fed at 40' with 4 elevated radials
Plus 4 580' Terminated Beverages,1 Shortpath,1 S.American, 1 Longpath & 1
JA.
A few Comments:
Now that a few of my motor and intellectual skills have returned after
the test I can post the results. Conditions are improving out here in
RF-Free Zone 3. Adding 1M points to last years score would tend to
indicate that.
10M- This was a band to always check back on between runs as evanescent
sigs from Southerly would waft in and out. No Euros here..but next year?
15M- Solid runs into JA & EU with Mults randomly appearing. Crowded
bands with a few frequency fights engendered by changing propagation.
Funniest thing there was the "person" who took umbrage at my run frequency
and attempted to send CW loudly. It would've worked better if the creature
would've not zero beat my frequency. The CW note was not in my ssb
passband! The fool eventually figured this out and shifted his Tx freq a
bit..so I had to then employ "other methods"(tm) to continue my run.
It was encouraging to hear an increasing number of African stations here.
I was called by an increasing number of BY stations and even the
occasional XU, XW and E2 OPs. Hope the future brings more of these folks
onto the bands
20M-What a Great Band. The runs into EU & JA were great! The usual
evening JA run commenced with great vigor with much more of a northerly
path available this year. Was working many of the Asian Russians along
with the JA's when the Euro Russians starting appearing. I swung the
stacks further northerly and cranked out the Q's culminating in having
A92GE call in followed a bit later by 9K2MU. Couldn't lure any of the
other Zone 22 or 23 gang to appear. The opening then seemed to reverse
itself with the EU Russians fading out then the Asian Russians fading.
The band was packed and I enjoyed a howling Pile-up that actually
responded well when my signal would support control of the mob. When
weaker I would use other methods or S & P.
40M- first evening here I got to the band late so essentially ran a
slug of JA's. Next night I got to the band earlier. Was able to work EU
during my daylight....then on the other end was able to work several EUs
after they had been in sunlight. Found a "clear spot" to RX on 095 and ran
several stations. Later looked at the sunrise/sunset times and it appears
that I worked some of the LY stations over 2 hours after their sunrise!
Guess that conditions here were better as compared to last year..but not
like 2-4 years ago, when they were really hot.
80M- Conditions were OK first night, better the second, but really
didn't make much difference since the ambient noise level was so high!
First grayline morning here netted exactly 2 Euro- Russians so didn't even
try the second am. Worked 5-6 Euros shortpath on their 2ed morning but
very difficult to complete. The noise really hurt the usual JA runs here.
The stations from JA that were making it were all 100W or more, so the #
of Q's here were down..plus the "window" is plugged with JA's calling.
160M- Noisy! I've been able to hear better at a Rolling Stones
concert with my -30dB earplugs in.
Overall this was a fun contest. I understand Richard's (K5NA)
observation that trying to understand weak SSB through the noise is
difficult. But thats part of the attraction of this silly mode. A CW note
in the same situation will be understood, but thats not the point. Its
trying to make a marginal Q during bad hearing conditions...and pulling it
off, along with everything else that makes the game fun.
Hams will go to great extremes to improve their own S/N ratio at
their QTh's, along with hardware and operating practices to make the tough
Q. ON4UN does a great job of describing what he had to do to play in this
year's edition of the test. Perseverance is part of the equation when it
comes to contesting.
See you in the next one..
73 and I remain,
Lew
Lew Sayre W7EW/W7AT lew@teleport.com
P.O.Box 3110 Fax 503-391-2258
Salem, Oregon 97302 160M thru 1296MHz
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