[3830] ARRLDX CW K5GN(@W5KU) SOAB HP

[Bruce Horn <bhorn@hornucopia.com>]

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                    ARRL DX Contest, CW

Call: K5GN
Operator(s): K5GN
Station: W5KU

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: S TEX
Operating Time (hrs): 35
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:   70    45
   80:  168    66
   40:  644    75
   20:  331    76
   15:  327    77
   10:  204    58
-------------------
Total: 1743   397  Total Score = 2,073,531

Club:

Comments:

IF YOU ARE IN MY LOG, CONGRATULATIONS!!!

YOU MUST BE REALLY LOUD.

SORRY TO BE SUCH AN ALLIGATOR.

Line noise is both debilitating and demoralizing.  Since late January what used
to be a low level S1 to S5 line noise on 10 and 15 had escalated to S7 to
S9+20dB on all bands, peaking NE.

I began campaigning with the power company the week after I noticed the noise.
Wasn't able to get them to answer my calls until after the CW Sprint.  Managed
to make an appointment the next week, so took a day off from work to spend the
day with the guy, only to have him unable to pinpoint a source.  This from a
20-over-S9 noise.  Got the more technically savvy RFI technician out the Monday
before this contest, burning another day off.  He pinpointed a particular
insulator and promised a line crew out in a couple of days to fix 
it.  Wednesday
and Thursday went by with no action.  Friday I drove out to the station and
found the noise unrelenting.  They hadn't come out at all; or his diagnosis was
wrong and they couldn't find the real problem.

Decided to spend Friday afternoon putting up a new 80m inv. vee and fixing up a
new NE beverage instead of napping, so started tired, and my heart wasn't 
in it.
 Worked hard at it, off and on, but its just lousy hearing guys in there 
but not
being able to pull them out. It was like working the weak ones in a 160 
contest.
 Every now and then, a few dits and dahs would rise above the 
noise.  Sometimes
the timing was right and they went right into the log.   Other times the same
two letters were Q5 and the rest impossible, over and over again.  Ugh.  If the
ionospheric condx hadn't been good, it would have been easy to quit.

Here's a summary:

160: Sloping vertical with elevated radial; beverages; Line noise S8 on 
both the
new and the old NE beverage and S9 on the TX antenna.  Worked everything I 
could
hear on the TX antenna, plus a couple of mults on the NW beverage.  Terrific
condx, as far as I could tell.  Did a lot of DXing and worked more countries
than I've ever worked in a weekend.  Figure a bunch more could have been heard
if the beverages had been useful.

80: New NE/SW inv. vee at 150', 2 el phased verticals NE, inv. vee NW/SE at
130', 2 el delta loop (parasitic reflector) at 130' NE.  High dipole and
verticals out transmitted the old delta loop array by a signficant margin.  Is
it old coax or is it a real improvement?  Old delta loop was the only antenna
with which I could hear through the line noise to the NE.  Actually got some CQ
answers, but no real rate to Europe.

40: Lowest line noise of all the bands was on the 2/2 stack at about S7.  Got
answers, but still many, many stations that just sounded like buzzing noises.
DXing on 80 and 160 kept me off 40 a lot.  Some really cool mults called in,
though.

20: Fairly low line noise, but only the big guns seem to come through with loud
signals here on 20.  Figured out Sunday that if I turned the top 5 el just
right, the overall noise went down an S-unit.  This helped me hear another few
guys, and had a number of slow answers to CQ's in the afternoon.  This was 
nice.
 There was a sort-of LP opening Saturday morning to Europe, but so many were
stuck on SP that the rate never materialized.  Sunday, the opening was even 
more
spotty.  Didn't work a JA until Sunday afternoon!

15: All line noise, all the time.  During the peak of the European opening, 
many
signals were over S9, but the noise was too.  Felt bad hearing people in there
that I couldn't copy, so stayed away a lot.  Sunday figured out that I 
could get
the noise down to S8-S9, again by turning the top antenna just so, but it was
late in the game and signals were already down.  It was even bad to JA, missed
out on some good opening hours.

10: As bad as 15.  Too bad, because it opened nicely to Europe on Saturday and
partially on Sunday.  It was frustrating to listen to pileups and wonder what
they're calling.  Probably the last DX contest weekend with openings to Europe
and Japan for the next several years.  Kept wondering if I could have been
keeping close to ZD(PA) and NT, but probably not.

Every antenna worked.  Wx was perfect, low atmospheric QRN, light winds.

Original goal was 1Meg points and 1000 QSO's.  But even a bad day fishing is
better than a good day at work, so I kept operating and tinkering after that.

Oh, the Centerpoint Energy guy called this morning.  They replaced a bad
lightning arrestor on the line next door (NE) last night.  He says it's all
fixed now.  One week too late.  Will check it out tomorrow.

Sigh.  It's only a hobby.

GN


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