ARRL 10-Meter Contest
Call: W6YX
Operator(s): K6UFO,W7SW,N7MH,AA6XV,W6RQ,N6DE,W6LD
Station: W6YX
Class: M/S HP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 32.2
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
CW: 1003 85
SSB: 1323 94
-------------------
Total: 2326 179 Total Score = 1,191,782
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
23 of the 32 hours on the air were with only a single operator. I set up 2
stations, one for CW and one for Phone, plus a 3rd station for spotting. The
spotting radio was never turned on. All of our operators were burned out from
the November contests or had conflicts of one type or another, so other than
myself the most hours put in by anyone was just over 4.
Most of the time was spent running on one mode and squeezing in a few S&P Q's on
the other mode with the second radio. The main antennas used were a 105CA at
about 30 feet high fixed pointing east and a rotatable Telrex 6-element at 75
feet. These antennas are about 500 to 600 feet apart and a rotatable C31XR is
above the 105CA at 60 feet. The C31XR is a great antenna on 10 meters but using
it caused S9+ interference both ways with each of the other 2 antennas, so it
mainly got used for mults. It also coupled RF between the other 2 antennas
unless it was oriented at right angles to the 105CA.
K6UFO and W7SW started the contest with a 75 hour, 48 on CW and 27 on Phone.
The second hour was the low point of Friday with only 36 Q's, but then the next
5 hours were 50 or more per hour, peaking in the 0500 hour with 92 Q's. I shut
down at 0715 with 439 Q's in the log, only 8 less than last year when we started
with a 201 first hour. We only worked one JA on Friday, on CW. Lots of VK/ZL
and South America, though. The band was wide open to most of W4, W5, and W0
between 0230Z and 0620Z. We could have worked many more but I think that many
stations had shut down for the evening because of the poor conditions earlier.
Saturday started slowly with a few South American stations worked shortly after
1400Z and finally moving to the Caribbean at 1450 and then opening to Florida
and the rest of the US shortly after 1500Z. We didn't hear any European or
African stations on Saturday. Our peak hour was 165 in the 1700 hour split 108
on phone, 57 on CW. N6DE had an excellent 2100Z hour with 112 CW and 1 phone
QSOs.
We worked a few JA's, but couldn't sustain a good rate and had bad interference
between the CW and Phone stations while beaming that way. For the entire
contest we only worked 65 JA and 3 DU stations. No HL, YB, 9M, BV, BY, XU, XV,
HS, or any of the other Asian multipliers we usually get.
Things got really slow in the 0100Z hour so I took a couple of hours off to eat.
When I got back just before 0400Z the band was open even better than the first
evening. It was open to the entire US although fewer 1's and 2's were worked
than the other call areas. The best two hours were 60 and 47 but this was good
considering we'd already worked most of the stations heard. I continued to work
into Florida until 0700Z when I left, but I think everyone had gone to bed since
the rate had gone way down.
I started later on Sunday morning and found the band already open to the eastern
US when I arrived at 1430Z. Managed to work our first African on CW, ZS at
1640Z. Even though the band was open signals were relatively weak and rates
didn't pick up until the 1700 hour when we peaked at 166, all but 1 on phone. I
watched packet spots for Europeans but couldn't hear anything on the spotted
frequencies.
Both days Curt, W6RQ, operated between about 1800 and 2000Z exclusively on
phone. Curt's been licensed since 2002 and has only operated a few contests so
far. It was great to see that his rates improved from around 90 per hour on
Saturday to about 120 on Sunday.
After Curt left on Sunday I tried to find a run frequency on CW. The low end of
the band was filled with key clicks which I assumed were caused by locals. When
I tuned to find the source of some key clicks I was surprised to find W8CAR who
was at least 50 over S9. There were several other W8 and W9 stations that were
equally loud and I now think the clicks were just receiver overload on my end.
I finally worked a couple of Europeans, a UA1 and OH, via the polar path. I
never heard any southern or central Europeans either on the direct or skew path.
I'd been seeing spots for 5U on phone both mornings but could never hear him.
Then he called me late Sunday for our second African. So we ended up with 2
countries each from Europe, Africa, and Asia and didn't hear any other countries
from these continents.
As on Saturday we couldn't establish a good rate to JA so we returned to beaming
east and worked mostly weak midwest stations in the last couple of hours.
Thanks to the few stations that we moved to the other mode. We missed ND, NF,
NT, YT, and NU on both modes, AK, DC, and PE on Phone, ME on CW.
-Mike, N7MH
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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