On Mon, 6 Aug 2001, greg and leann richard wrote:
> Hope everybody had a good contest. I am still trying to figure out
> why I didn't do better. I ended up with 623 x 170. I had 91 Q's in
> the first hour (71 on 20 meters and 20 on the 2nd radio 15 meters)
> Then things went downhill fast.
For your reference, W4AN rate...
160 80 40 20 15 10 hr cum
------------------------------------------------------------------
18 0 0 0 10 65 27 102 108
19 0 0 0 31 4 11 46 154
20 0 0 0 37 11 11 59 213
21 0 0 0 22 23 8 53 266
22 1 1 1 36 9 3 51 317
23 0 0 16 38 1 3 58 375
0 0 0 39 27 5 3 74 449
1 0 2 49 26 2 5 84 533
2 0 28 77 0 0 1 106 639
3 30 39 6 1 2 1 79 718
4 27 41 18 0 0 0 86 804
5 7 9 20 1 2 2 41 845
Offtimes: 1900-1930, 2053-2123, 2249-2319, 0530-0600
Lightning was all around me from 2130Z to 0100Z.
My thoughts on your situation:
I always use an open band as a way to get mults. So 20 was my way to get
people to 10 and 15. I never stayed on 20 for long because I was
constantly moving people. The fact that you worked 71 QSOs the first hour
tells me that you didn't bother to move anyone, and ran out of people to
work eventually.
I did the same routine on 40. I could have had a couple 90 hours on 40 if
I didn't move people. Instead, I used 40 as a means to an end... more
mults on the high bands and even 80 and 160 if I thought it made sense.
15 meters was the best I've ever heard it in an August NAQP. I think you
should have been there at the start. I only went to 20 when my rate
started to really suffer on 10 and 15. I would pop back to 20 for short
periods until I moved people, and then would generally stay at the move
frequency for short periods of CQing in case others had followed.
> Was there a time when 10 meters was open? I worked 1 guy there but
> took a break about 10 minutes later. Wondering if I missed the
> opening.
It was open the entire contest.
It was, however, not open for E-skip much which is very unusual for an
August NAQP. Normally I can work people up north direct with pretty
decent signals. Most of my QSOs were via about 210 degress, except for a
direct E opening to the NW to Minnesota and surrounding area and to W6 at
the start of the contest.
The way I do it is listen on 10 with the 2nd radio and find someone CQing
and try to peak their signal. I found WE9V and knew he would be there for
a long time being multi. Turning antennas clearly revealed that he was
MUCH louder at 210 degrees. Until then, I was beaming more like 150
degrees. After I found the key direction for back scatter, moving people
there was more successful. Being in the south also helps because people
up north beam south anyway to work me and probably never realize that we
work via back scatter. Some guys out west I asked to beam SW, which
helped me work a few of them.
> Did anyone work ID, MT,DE or MS?
I did not work Idaho, Montana, or Delaware. I did work Mississippi...
maybe 2 bands.
> Canadian activity seemed down too.
I thought it was great.
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