band QSOs pts mults
160 12 32 7
80 78 238 22
40 220 822 35
20 664 2874 56
15 520 2230 47
10 21 77 10
TOTAL 1515 6273 177 SCORE: 1,110,321
Club or Team Name: Team Cramp
I overhauled my station over the past year after lightning zapped
my main antenna - the KT34XA. In recent years I have been out of
the loop in single op DX contests for lack of effective lowband
capability - really a problem through the low years of the spot
cycle. Now I got 2 tribanders, and one of them does 40! Also have
some serious wires, but no receiving antennas yet. They are next.
For station details, check: http://www.nol.net/~ids/faq.htm
Have also re-engineered for SO2R, and have some more work to do
on this. My contest scores have always been short on mults, as I
tend to play the propagation for rate - at the expense of S&P. The
goal is to comprehensively sweep the bands for mults while I am
running. I am not there yet. I usually don't pass mults either.
The WPX was my first real effort - and a disaster with major
problems in both hardware and software. Tossed the towel before it
was half over on the hardware problems, but continued to check
out how the antennas played and ran into software problems that
would have shut me down anyway. I will eventually document these
for the programmer, and assume they are not fixed.
Did serious 1D in Field Day as a warmup for IARU. Switched to NA
and everything worked flawlessly except I wasn't doing the SO2R
thing. Conditions were wierd (Flux 200, K=4), but I might have won
1D - the wimp category. The 3 recent wins in 2A were more fun.
I love the IARU - 2nd only to the CQWW. Did lots of SO2R in first
half of contest, but missed most 10 Meter activity (my new weak
band). Though I was able to do the stereo radio thing effectively, it
wears me down faster and I am in no mood for it during periods of
advanced fatigue.
The lowbands were fun into Europe with all the HQ stations. They
were easy on 80 from here. Activity on 160 was very light, and I
didn't stick around on 40 for EU/stateside rate cuz 20 was so hot.
Stayed on one frequency 'til 3:am local without checking other
bands (fatigued). Went to lowbands when rate dropped under 60,
but probably should have stayed on 20 an extra hour cuz the
lowband activity had already dried up (a lot of people sleep in this
short contest!). Then rates picked up on 40 going into sunrise time.
80M activity sucked to the west - only one JA this year, followed
immediately by VK6 & VK5 (all very copyable). The NH2 was loud
coming back to others, but strictly S&P and I couldn't get him to
answer my CQ.
Did all the 2 radio switching manually, cuz everything was originally
designed for TRLog with CW LPT's for each radio instead of the
relay. I am happy with the score and have some fresh ideas to
implement soon for SO2R, hopefully by NAQP. Quack is back!
Roy -- AD5Q
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