ARRL 160-Meter Contest
Call: N7GP
Operator(s): NI5L, W7MCO, N5IA, NA5S
Station: W7MCO
Class: M/S HP
QTH: AZ - DM52
Operating Time (hrs): 31.5
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 1247 Sections = 79 Countries = 29 Total Score = 295,272
Club:
Comments:
Thanks to all the participants for all the contacts in our log and also thanks
to the few we were unable to make contact with. We did our best.
As many have already stated, "What a great contest period!!!!!" Murphy did not
visit and we actually had a very welcome rainstorm in the desert southwest on
Saturday afternoon/evening. On top of that the N7GP crew had their best outing
ever as the ops continue to improve their skills.
The W7MCO station is two 1K MP's with the Inrad roofing filters added to them
last week. The report on the filters from this operators view is that they work
VERY well. I never experienced the close-to-frequency problems previously
present under contest conditions.
Yes, there were still some stations on with key clicks. Notepad shows four
offenders were bad enough to warrant attention and time to log such. The
filters do NOT help with stations who plop down within the bandwidth of the
cascaded 250 Hz filters and press F1 without so much as a ..--.. or QRL. The
urge to kill by one of ops who is a nationally ranked archer and rifle shooting
buff was at the pop-off point more than once.
Some stats for those that are interested in such things.
Our highest hourly rate was 82 in the 0300 hour the 1st night. Our lowest
hourly rate was 15 during the 0900 hour the 1st night. Surprisingly we never
got into those dreaded single digit hours, even the 2nd night.
We WAStates in 13.5 hours with RI being # 50.
WE WASections with the exception of NWT. Had VY1AF call in at 0705 on the 2nd
night (clear, relatively strong, and copied on first call) for the sweep but
that station never responded to our reply. Anyone know if this station was on,
or was it a slim playing with my mind? Does the aurora open and close that
quickly?
Still no AF contacts in this contest for a WAC.
The Golden State boys again were our bread and butter with the accumulative Q
count from all the CA sections totaling 161. The Lone Star State of Texas was
next highest as it's great operators provided 91 Q's from it's 3 Sections.
The east of the Mississippi leader was MN with 52 stations going into our log.
VA and OH each contributed 42. The combined 1st District call area was well
represented with 56 call ins. Amazingly, VT led the pack with 13.
At the other end of the scale, only 1 DE, 2 NLI and 2 NNY stations made it way
out west to us.
>From those Sections that are sometimes difficult for the eastern boys, we show
the following amounts: EWA-7, ID-7, MT-9, NV-9, WY-3, ND-8, SD-7. From the 49th
and 50th States we had 2 and 4 Q's respectively.
And north of the border, YES, the VE6's were out in force. Our log shows 12 of
them. VE3 had the largest showing with 18, and 13 VE7's made them the 3rd
largest contributor from our northern neighbor. Only 1 each from NL and MB.
The DX count was also the best ever for us. The first night yielded ZF, VP2M,
9Y, XE, YV, I (4), DL (4), LY, HB, ON, OH, G (8), PA, GW, SM, F, ZL, GM, CM, FM,
HP, JT and UA9 besides the mini JA run.
Of note is the contact with ZL was at 0817 and the GM at 0822, just 5 minutes
apart from opposite sides of the terminator.
The 2nd night added PJ2, SP, another F (only other EU the 2nd night was a DL
dupe), VK and HL. No JA run the 2nd morning. Only two times were two JA
callsigns entered consecutively. Total JA count for the contest was 35. We
worked 30 Euros.
It is pretty much a given that if we have a decent EU opening here in the
southwest US there will NOT be a good Pacific opening. The past two years were
much poorer overall. In 2003 we worked 41 JA's and zero EU. In 2002 we worked
60 JA's and 1 EU. Go figure!!!!!! In any case, thanks to all the great
operators out there in EU and AS. All in all we had 80 5-point Q's.
The transmit antenna at W7MCO is 40 feet of Rohn 25 up to a home brew insulated
base, and then 80 feet of Rohn 25 topped by a Force 12 C4XL. A 10 foot stinger
of 1 1/2" tubing above the beam makes the whole thing resonate at 1.830. A
total of 24, 1/4 WL radials extend outward and down from the insulated base
section and terminate from 5 to 20 feet above ground. This is a great 7 band
antenna system in one structure.
Eight 2-wire Beverages oriented so that there is an antenna every 22.5 degrees
of the compass comprise the RX antenna system. The Bevs are 10 feet high with
12" spacing between the sires and use sloping terminations at both ends. Their
length varies from one to two WL. A 17th antenna is a full WL horizontal loop
just 4 feet above ground which is utilized as an omni RX antenna.
All RX antennas are signal split at the antenna field and have separate
selectors at each operating position.
The TX vertical is not used for RX and the Alpha 89b amp is permanently keyed so
there is no relay action in the amp for the entire contest. The RF input to the
amp is through a Dow-Key relay and is selected to the appropriate MP by a
homebrew keying/keying lockout control board.
Someone mentioned DUPES. Yep, a LOT of them. One of our ops runs the autodupe
in NA and does not log dupes. I tell him it doesn't matter and just maybe we
logged someone when they were actually working another station. Timing is
everything you know. Anyway, more than 50 dupes in our log. I think some folks
don't keep a log and don't remember who they work. But when the same individual
comes back 10 times during the course of the contest it gets a bit old. But,
that is just the price of having the one Q count in the log.
Again, thanks to all the stations who got on THE band for the contest and
especially to those that found there way into the N7GP log. 73, and CU all in
the Stew Perry Distance Challenge 12 days hence.
Milt, N5IA
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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