ARRL 10-Meter Contest
Call: VE7FO
Operator(s): VE7FO
Station: VE7FO
Class: SO Mixed LP
QTH: BC
Operating Time (hrs): 10
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
CW: 243 38
SSB: 121 23
-------------------
Total: 364 61 Total Score = 100,762
Club: British Columbia DX Club
Comments:
Couldn't play much in this one. We had a Xmas party for the neighbours on Sat
night so was pretty busy for most of Sat.
I'm not really familiar with 10, having returned to the game just 4 years ago,
and I tend to think of it as being much like the other HF bands. i.e. if MUF is
below 28 MHz you might as well forget 10. Consequently, I didn't expect to hear
much of anything. Decided to go Mixed to extract whatever fun may be
available.
I ran BeaconSee for a couple of days before the contest and was surprised to see
how often 4U1UN, W6WX, ZL6B, LU4AA, YV5B and occasionally other beacons showed
up on 10, including at times when I expected the band would be dead. Hmm...
there may be life in this contest! (BeaconSee displays on the computer screen,
in a very nice format, which of the NCDXF beacons can be heard at your QTH at
any particular time. It also provides a record so you can walk away from the
shack, come back in 2 hours and see which bands have been open to where in the
last 2 hours. It is also obvious how strong the beacons were during that time.
It allows you to save the images. If you want to try it, do a search for
BeaconSee and download it. Very slick.)
Managed to get on right at the start of the test. Hey, there are signals on the
band, all CW and all VE7. Never heard so many VE7s in a contest. Worked all 9
of them. Whoa, what's this? A new mult! - Wa. Gave up after 20 minutes with
10 Qs and 2 mults. Started BeaconSee and went and did other stuff.
Came back to the shack at about 2300 PST to check out BeaconSee. Hey, W6WX is
coming through, let's see what's happening. Here's a nice strong signal. Oh...
VE7 #10. Worked him and a few 6s and went to bed with 16 Qs and 3 mults.
Managed to get in 3 hours on Sat between 1200 and 1600 PST. Band noise was
about S7. Mostly 4s, 5s, SA and Carib. Had a 74 hour on CW in there which was
nice. Now have 145 Qs and 49 mults. My high band antennas consist of an old
TH3 tribander up about 43 ft and, mounted a foot above it is an R5 vertical. I
got the R5 specifically to use with BeaconSee, a beam having obvious limitations
for this purpose. I was surprised and intrigued to find that the vertical had,
in this test, a lot less noise than the TH3 and, more surprisingly, the SNR was
often better on the vertical. There were stations I couldn't copy at all on the
TH3 which were Q4 on the R5.
Late Sat nite. Neighbours are getting old - party's over. Helped XYL clean up,
deal with dishes, etc. Decide to play with Farnsworth CW settings in TRLog so
go to shack at 0200 PST Sun. While playing I thought I might as well radiate
the CQs I'm generating so park on 28.005. 20 min later I'm astonished to hear
K2ZD in NJ calling me. Turns out I was S8 on his MkV. Shortly after, I work
K3FT and WA4DOU, a new mult. Didn't hear anyone else. Checked the predicted
MUFs along the path to K2 using DX Atlas. Nowhere was it higher than 11 MHz.
My first realization that 10m is, shall we say, "different". Of course, this
new knowledge comes at a price - can't get up in time for possible Eu opening.
Not too worried about that, though, as BeaconSee hasn't shown anything from Eu
on 10 in the last few days that I've been running it.
0920 PST Sun (1720Z) - 147 Qs, 50 mults (one of the 3 late night ones was a
dupe!) OK, this is it. Full bore 'til the end. Didn't have any particular
hopes for this test so no particular Q target in mind. Just going to do the
best I can. Tried to do the run on VFO B while tuning around on VFO A thing
(SO1.5R) but band is very noisy (S7) and I'm tired so wasn't able to do much
with this. Was nice to have a couple of 63 hours on CW in there. Somewhere in
the 21Z hour I realized I might be able to make 100K pts so pushed to do that.
Uh, oh, 2215Z and rate is dropping dramatically. Tune around - 5 kHz stretches
with no signals. Frantically S&P, alternating between CW and SSB. Pull the
plug at 2302Z with my 100K points.
Somewhere near the end I worked KA5PQD/N. I dislike cut numbers anyway (because
they confuse me) but this seemed particularly inappropriate. Besides, how come
he's signing /9 and giving out Tx in his exchange? Man, he must be a real
novice at this contesting stuff - wait a minute, isn't there something in the
rules about novices? Hey, edit the /9 in the log to /N and find he's an 8
pointer. So now who's the novice? Bumps final score up by 244.
Not sure what to think about all this. Never heard any sigs outside of N & S
America. Read the 3830 stuff to date and see talk of W Coast working some JA
and Oceania. Also saw talk of half a dozen propagation modes I know next to
nothing about. So, how did my sig get to K2 at 0220 PST? The only mode that
makes sense to me, given my very limited understanding, is sporadic E. I'd sure
be interested if someone can direct me to a source of info on 10m propagation.
It's obvious to me that there's way more to this band than I realized.
Might see you in the RAC Winter test, but it's scheduled at a difficult time.
73 es Merry Xmas de Jim Smith VE7FO
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
---------------------------------------------------------------
The world's top contesters battle it out in Finland!
THE OFFICIAL FILM of WRTC 2002 now on professional DVD and VHS!
http://home1.pacific.net.sg/~jamesb/
---------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
3830 mailing list
3830@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/3830
|