ARRL 10-Meter Contest
Call: NW0L
Operator(s):
Station: W0NKL
Class: SO SSB HP
QTH: KS
Operating Time (hrs): 23
Summary:
Mode QSOs Mults
----------------------
CW:
SSB: 1882 140
----------------------
Total: 1882 140 = 526,960
Club: KCDXC
Comments:
(This is a little long. But I took the time to write it, so you should take the
time to read it... ;-)
Had a blast operating from W0NKL in southeast Kansas. Jim has a Mosley Pro-67C
up 150 ft and loaned me his Collins 30S-1 amplifier so I could run with the
"big dogs" for a change. Sure beats the heck out of 100 watts and a tribander
on the roof!
Got off to a great start Friday night with 150 Q's before the band closed down.
Things picked up again Saturday morning but the band was slower to open than I
expected. Started listening around 19:00 and sat down on a frequency shortly
thereafter, where I spent 5 hours solid running the frequency and had a great
time watching the WriteLog rate meter - it spiked to over 300 for a couple of
minutes during one run! I wound up with just about 1200 Qs at the end of 24
hours and thought I was really on a roll - that was more Qs than I'd ever
worked in any contest, ever!
But Murphy showed up just after 0000Z and changed "something" in the amp - it
wouldn't load up at all where it was supposed to, and Jim wasn't around to help
me troubleshoot. So I went back to 100 watts and missed out on what I think
would have ben a great run of JAs - I heard lots of them but couldn't work
them. So I jumped in the truck around 8:30 local time, made the 90 minute drive
back home in about 75 minutes and grabbed my AL-80B, then flew back to W0NKL's.
I got back around 11:00 and Jim had the amp going again - he put in a new
4CX1000 and found that the tuning capacitor had to be about 1/3 more meshed
than it was. No idea why. So we fiddled around with that for another hour
making sure it was going to work and that the thermal protection relay would
not kick out too soon. Finally off to bed around 1:00am.
Up at 19:00z and found the band already filled with Europeans. Got back on
around 1930z and started looking for mults in S&P mode. In hindsight, that was
a critical mistake, since by the time I sat down to run a frequency, stateside
stations were wall to wall. And just as I got a good run going, somebody
vaporized the ionosphere and all I heard was S3 noise (compared to S0
normally). And then the Europeans were gone. And then they came back. And then
they were gone again. I managed about 400 more Qs by 1800Z and took a break for
lunch, which turned out to be another critical mistake. I couldn't get a run of
any kind going after 1800z no matter how I tried - maybe 5 or 10 minutes on a
frequency that sounded otherwise empty except for me. So my dreams of 2500 Qs
turned to dreams of 2000 Qs and by 2100z it was obvious I wouldn't get that far
either. So I spent most of the afternoon in S&P mode and picked up some great
mults - favorite was 9Y4VU who was taking his time, getting everyone's name and
10-10 number and having what almost passed for a real QSO with each person who
stopped by.
Overall I was quite pleased with my performance and really didn't know what to
expect as far as number of Qs or points and didn't know how the big Mosley at
150 ft would play on 10m, especially for stateside. But I ended up working 49
states (missed Wyoming) and 11 Canadian sections (no PEI, MAR or YT) and heard
all the surrounding states easily during the entire contest. I think I could
have had more mults on Saturday if I hadn't been mesmorized with rates over 100
Qs/hr (sustained, for the first time ever!) - should have gone S&P more often
but it's hard to know when to trade rates for mults and it'll take another few
years to master that fine art, I'm sure.
Alarming trend of the contest: Am I the only one who was called by at least
100, probably more, dupes? Either everybody on the planet got my call wrong or
they're becoming too lazy to do a dupe check before calling. I went ahead and
logged the first few as dupes just in case but then it just got ridiculous so I
stopped. Please check your log if you worked me and make sure you have the
call correct - NW0L, **NOT** N0WL - QSL?
Favorite Q: The VE-something who called with his roger-beep turned on. 10-4,
good buddy!
Thanks to all who put up with my constant requests for repeats - I think the
amp gave me a little more reach than my receiver could compensate for and it
seemed at times like I was hearing things in my head and not on the receiver...
QSL via callbook (with SASE) or buro!
73 and see you next year!
-Marty NW0L
martyt@pobox.com
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