2001 NCJ NORTH AMERICAN SPRINT
Call used: N3BB Location: TX
Category: Single Op All Band Mode: CW Power: 1500
Callsign of Operator: N3BB
Hours of Operation: 03:59
band QSOs points
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80 45 45
40 91 91
20 155 155
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TOTAL 291 291 X 46 multipliers = 13,386
Club or Team Name: Austin Powers
All day Saturday, there was a big nervous ball in my gut. But I spent good
quality preparation time and was clear and ready to go at 00Z.
Unfortunately I missed the 300 QSO personal goal. Conditions were not as
good as in February, with high background QRN on 40/80, but the usual
suspects were out in force and the operating skills were terrific at the
higher levels. I felt like a lid at times including three repeats to get
Trey's call at TG9/N5KO with a watery signal. In all the excitement, I
forgot to switch to the SE mult ant set up for exactly that purpose.
Missed NM, and heard N6ZZ only once when he called me on 80. For some
reason, I went back to someone else, so bye bye NM! I got W4MR's name
incorrectly as "Wil" on the first of three QSOs, and the program repeated
that for the other two bands. Fortunately, I stopped and asked him to
clarify on 80, and went and corrected it on 20/40, so I didn't fall into
the trap of three silly errors that way. W4AN had mentioned that exact
problem to me in a rag chew one day.
I "teed" my 3 el and 2 el 40 yagis together to spread the signal to both
coasts, but I never felt loud, and the band was sooo noisy. It just didn't
feel right. QRN was so bad that most contacts on 80 required the
beverages, and the NE bev was useful only to the east coast and the NW
beverage only to the west coast. 80 was tough.
The presets of 30 WPM and 36 WPM for slowing down a bit when needed were
handy, and I used this a lot. I apologize for calling quite a number of
people as a dupe. Need to check that more quickly and effectively before
calling. Everyone said "B4" or equivalent, and were sharp.
The capability to run the 2R thing in this contest in high rate conditions
is incredible. I am starting to know what I don't know. Although I still
am poor at it in Sprint conditions, I did manage three mults on 20 later in
the contest, with MI, NP4, and WY that way. Congrats to the great
operators who excell in that capability.
On another true confessions area, I forgot to hit the "enter" key several
times, when calling and working someone, and then the next QSO-the "jump
ball" QSO, with all that excitement, ended up being a jumble messing up the
non-entered previous QSO. Gotta remember to do that every time. This
screwed up the number of the previous QSO, and I had to guess on the
previous number twice, Probably will lose those. Stupid errors on my
part!
Congrats on the terrific score
73,
Jim
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