ARRL INTERNATIONAL DX CONTEST -- 1999
Call: ZF2NT Country: Cayman Islands
Mode: CW Category: Single Operator, Low Power
BAND QSO QSO PTS STATES/PROV
160 232 696 46
80 520 1560 52
40 687 2061 55
20 876 2628 58
15 890 2670 57
10 876 2628 52
-----------------------------------
Totals 4081 12243 320 = 3,917,760
Equipment: Yaesu FT-990/CT9. Hy Gain Explorer 14 up 50' for 10/15/20;
vertical with elevated/tuned radials for 40; inverted V up 45' off
single feedline for 80 and 160. (The classic 100w tribander and wires
setup.)
Comments: For me, this contest was a race against myself. I lost. The
last time I did this contest from Little Cayman was in 1994, and I was
also LP then. I had the rate sheet from that contest in front of me all
weekend, and hourly I tracked my progress against 1994.
As of Saturday afternoon (~2000Z) I was about 300 Q's ahead of the '94
race. It looked like I was on my way to a really hot new LP record.
Then I just crashed and burned, big time. It was my own fault, so can't
blame anybody. I was falling asleep right in the middle of QSO's. The
rate meter was showing 200 on last 10, and I'd suddenly wake up to
somebody sending "????" and see nothing but "JJJJJJJJJJ" in the callsign
field! My brain went to mush--couln't type, couldn't copy, couldn't
send. I tried standing up, drinking coffee--everything. Still, I just
kept blacking out. It wasn't until about 0300Z that I was really able
to get back into the game, and a lot of my lead over '94 had evaporatd
by then.
Saturday night (well, Sunday morning) produced one of the most bizarre
experiences I've had in contesting. About 0500Z I suddenly noticed that
40 was unusually quiet. I had S0 noise, and I'm used to coping with big
time QRN down here. But if 40 was so good, what about 80? The answer
was the same--zero noise. A few minutes of that, and I thought--"Why
not more 160?" Bingo! It was like being on 10 meters. There was NO
static at all. I could almost hear guys breathing at the other end.
Between 0607Z and 0643Z I ran 160 like it was 10 meters. I don't think
people at the other end were hearing me all that terribly well, because
I kept having to repeat myself, but I was hearing them S9 against an S0
noise floor. Awesome! This was a particular pipe to the west coast.
I'd almost be shocked to hear there was anybody out there who called me
at that time that I didn't come back to in one or two calls.
The real disappointment came Sunday afternoon. I had S7 noise on 20m,
and it was just miserable trying to pull people out of the pile. This
time, I was the alligator. The usual end-of-contest pile-ups never
came. Normally, I can count on 200/hr for the last few hours Sunday
afternoon. It never materialized this time. Was participation lower
than '94? Were people still off chasing Europeans? I dunno, but I
watched myself fall further and further behind '94 until the end, where
I was down almost 200 Q's from before. Score in '94 was 3.997M; this
3.918M was therefore a major disappointment. It's either the aging
process at work, or there are fewer contesters around these days, or
conditions were worse, or what? Whatever. It was still a fun race,
even if I did lose!
Bruce, ZF2NT/N6NT
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