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[CQ-Contest] N3BB IARU SOAB CW (Long Comments)

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Subject: [CQ-Contest] N3BB IARU SOAB CW (Long Comments)
From: Jim George <n3bb@mindspring.com>
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2005 18:33:59 -0500
List-post: <mailto:cq-contest@contesting.com>
I can't seem to post this on 3830, as the brief scores already were 
posted.  It won't accept any thing else.  Here's my analysis and off beat 
musing stuff.

Jim N3BB

The contest starts here at 7 AM CDT, and the first hour was 
disappointing.  I made only 88 contacts, and 40 meters, usually the hot 
band for the first 30 minutes, was lame.  20 meters produced 65 Qs and 40 
only 21, with a couple on 15.  The Asians were good on 20, with JA, 9M2, 
UA0, but it was too late on 40.  As it turned out Sunday morning, 40 meters 
was going down sharply by 0630, and 0700Z was too late.  I was not able to 
work 8N4HQ Saturday morning, as 40 was so far gone Saturday by the 
start!  The next four hours were better, with a 112, 136, 108, and 
110.  The 136 rate, very good from here, happened as 15 meter opened to 
EU.  Those four hours were a composite of 15 and 20.  I tried 20 meters LP 
at 01Z but it yielded zero!  Jas were loud on 20 short path at 1330Z.  EU 
on 15 meters ranged from pee-weak to strong in waves, but they kept 
coming.  20 and 15 both produced the contacts until 2000Z, when 15 pooped 
out.

At 2110Z, W5JAW, a local friend, broke in and told me there were stations 
calling me, and I was not answering them.  He explained they were calling 
off frequency.  I started sweeping the RIT on the run station receiver, and 
found people calling me all the way up to 200 Hz away from my 
frequency.  Even if they were strong, I wasn't going to hear them much more 
than 50 or 100 Hz away, on one of the sides.  So I began to listen by 
tuning the RIT knob after every CQ and started to pick up these stations at 
a pretty good clip.  When there is a nice pile up on or near the CQ 
frequency, that can be overlooked, but when the time periods exist that 
there are fewer stations calling, then the ability to "sweep" the outliers 
up is critical.  I will need to automate that ability, as tuning the tiny 
RIT know on the FT1000MPs is hard work.  But it's clear many people are way 
off frequency.  Doing that and listening hard on the SO2R receiver is hard 
work.  That's an area for improvement in my operating method.

At 2126Z one of those SO2R moments happened, as I was answered on 20 by 
N6RO exactly at the same time I was listening to him and getting ready to 
call him on 15 on the 2nd radio.  He called me and the very next QSO I 
called him on 15.  It was perfect.  It was like being in the room with Ken.

At 2200Z, I started looking in earnest for a JA run on 15 meters.  Not only 
was there no JA "run," there were no JAs period!  I kept coming back, 
thinking the band would open late, but it never did.  I don't think I ever 
heard a single JA on 15.  Amazing!

Naturally, 10 meters was pretty moribund.  The strongest station heard all 
weekend was an S9 KF7E in Arizona, but the picking's were few and slim.  I 
was pleased to hear a weak W1AW/5 in Arkansas for a brief time on 10.  They 
had good ears, and one call did the trick.  I did manage to work W1AW/5 and 
NU1AW/3 on all possible 12 bands.

It seemed harder to run at the usual CW speeds this contest.  I simply felt 
that 32-34 WPM was too fast given the conditions and the speeds of the 
other stations.  For the first time in a long time, I ran the majority of 
the contest at 29 WPM.  It just seemed better for the other stations.

40 started to open at 2330Z.  At our sunset, EU got very good on 40, and 
the 108 hour at 01-02Z was mostly EU, with great signals.  Then the band 
sagged, and it was half 20 and half 40 every hour through the 07Z hour.  I 
was disappointed that there was little to none over-the-pole path to Asia 
and EU on 20 as the sunrise swept across the land mass from East to West.
Our weather was good.

No storms were in the area, and the low band noise was quite low.  However 
it was hard working EU on 80!  I did work S58A at 0216Z, T90HQ at 0303Z, 
PA5KT at 0316Z, and S580HQ at 0319, but I never heard the usually reliable 
GB5HQ and TM0HQ at all!  That was it for EU.  Very disappointing!  I called 
CQ and listened and experimented with all combinations.  There were some 
pretty good USA QSO rates, but EU just wasn't good here at all.  As the 
clock ground down, and I realized I was heading for my usual multiplier 
disaster, I got desperate, and tried moving stations on all three LF 
bands.  There were some successes, but overall it was very hard working to 
the north on 80 and 160 meters.  I did get VE7NS to move to 160 for a move 
from 40, but in general it was very hard.  The first JAs started to come in 
at 0810Z on 40, and the band opened nicely to JA.  I had good but not great 
runs until 1000Z.  9V9HQ called me on 40 at 1030Z and that was 
appreciated.  The last hour was terrible, and the band started fading out 
to Japan.  I did hear VR2BG and a VK6, but never could catch up with them 
as they were S&Ping.  At 1130Z, in desperation, I found a weak and watery 
JA7DLE calling CQ on 80 and made a difficult QSO with repeats on both 
ends.  But 8N2HQ was pretty loud at 1108Z.

This contest was *hard*!  It was a grind, and I concluded that 24 hours is 
my max.  I just don't think it's sane or healthy to sit in a chair for 48 
hours and made myself a promise to avoid 48 hour contests.  Right now, even 
two and a half days after the IARU ended, I still think how hard this was.

Perhaps I am affected by this: at 1720Z, my wife handed me a note that my 
cousin in Kentucky died.  He was a role model for me, and I idolized him my 
whole life.  He was four years older than I.  His death from cancer was 
inevitable, but still a shock.  It interrupted the contest for me even 
though the total off time to arrange the flight out Sunday morning was 
around thirty minutes as my wife did most of the phone work.  I noted 
several times in the "notes" that it was weird to be in a contest, as a 63 
year old man with tears running down my face, thinking about idolizing Mack 
and his family, and still calling CQ and logging answers.  I turned off the 
station at 0700Z Sunday morning, packed my suitcase, and my wife drove me 
to the Austin airport to catch a flight.  There was no sleep until I 
catnapped on the plane.

The numbers:
                                       Rate


   HR   160     80     40     20      15     10    TOT   CUM
   ----  ------  ------  ------  ------  ------  ------   -----   -----
    12       0       0      21      65       2       0      88      88
    13       0       0       0      68      44       0     112     200
    14       0       0       0      18     118       0     136     336
    15       0       0       0      12      96       0     108     444
    16       0       0       0      67      40       3     110     554
    17       0       0       0      61      17       4      82     636
    18       0       0       0      30      17       9      56     692
    19       0       0       0      35      10      12      57     749
    20       0       0       0      17      64       6      87     836
    21       0       0       0      44      16       1      61     897
    22       0       0       0      43       7       1      51     948
    23       0       0      16      71       1       3      91    1039

     0       0       0      30      56       0       0      86    1125
     1       0       0      95      13       0       0     108    1233
     2       0      10      12      37       2       0      61    1294
     3       6      17      24       3       0       0      50    1344
     4       2      40      33       0       0       0      75    1419
     5       4      35      35       0       0       0      74    1493
     6       8      20      25       0       0       0      53    1546
     7       2      13      38       0       0       0      53    1599
     8       3       4      58       0       0       0      65    1664
     9       0       8      51       0       0       0      59    1723
    10       1       4      56       0       0       0      61    1784
    11       0       5      33       0       0       0      38    1822

   TOTAL    26     156     527     640     434      39


       Continent List Distribution

                    160    80    40    20    15    10    30    17    12    ALL
                    ---    --    --    --    --    --    --    --    --    ---
   USA calls   =     20   122   298   432   184    22     0     0     0   1078
   VE calls    =      5    15    26    50    16     0     0     0     0    112
   N.A. calls  =      0     3     7     7     7     4     0     0     0     28
   S.A. calls  =      0     4     6     4    13    12     0     0     0     39
   Euro calls  =      0     8    48    53   198     0     0     0     0    307
   Afrc calls  =      0     0     6     1     6     0     0     0     0     13
   Asia calls  =      0     0     8    10     6     0     0     0     0     24
   JA calls    =      0     2   107    79     0     0     0     0     0    188
   Ocen calls  =      1     2    21     4     4     1     0     0     0     33

   Unknowns    =      0     0     0     0     0     0     0     0     0      0

   Total calls =     26   156   527   640   434    39     0     0     0   1822


    BAND   Raw QSOs   Valid QSOs   Points   Mults   Zones
  _______________________________________________________

   160CW       26          26         62       3         6
    80CW      156         156        420       8        15
    40CW      530         527       1779      21        31
    20CW      640         640       2026      16        28
    15CW      435         434       1626      17        27
    10CW       39          39        119       5         8
  _______________________________________________________

  Totals     1826        1822       6032      70       115


End
  


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