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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