ARRL 10-Meter Contest
Call: KG5U
Operator(s): KG5U
Station: KG5U
Class: SO CW QRP
QTH: TX
Operating Time (hrs): 21
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
CW: 424 67
SSB:
-------------------
Total: 424 67 Total Score = 112,828
Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club
Comments:
I'll be darned.
You CAN get blood from a turnip.
This has been a very interesting contest, indeed.
I wasn't sure how my C3E at 70' was going to work. I have apparently lost
my climbing belt, so ordered a new climbing harness. But it didn't ship out
from WA until late in the week and will likely show up Monday morning (of
course)(Monday evening: It did. It and I go up the tower tomorrow afternoon
after work). But, the intermittent that I experienced with it in SS CW was
still there and with little or no wind the whole weekend, it worked well.
Friday night was interesting. Locals (TX, NM, OK), some Carib/South
America, and a few VK/ZL's. New problem found: Beam will not rotate
through West to South. It took some encouragement (rocking the beam) to
even get it a few degrees south of West so the ZL's could even hear me--like
with the OH's, if my beam is not pointed directly at them, they won't hear
me. But, the ZL's did, four of them, anyway...and two VK's. I heard a
couple of JA's, but they were light and I'm sure I was non-existent in their
headphones.
Saturday was a mess. Southeast US--did I miss anyone in FL? Sorry if I
did--and Carib/SA was pretty much it for a good while. then things began
opening up to the north, but with the beam still pointing 'skew
path'--East-South-East. Only for the VO's did the beam work as
expected--point it at 'em and they became strong. This weekend, I worked
more 1's and 2's with my A3S hardmounted to the tower at 40' and fixed on
Northwest than I did on my C3E at 70'. Never heard anything farther west
and north than New Mexico all day.
Sunday was good, with more of the midwest and northeast opening up, still
skew path, though. Spent a lot of time in automatic CQ mode and netted
three EA8's and one CU--my only Euro/AF contacts for the weekend. Got fed
up and went to lunch around noon -- which I heard later was when the
scandinavians made an appearance. Oh well... Shortly after I got on again,
I worked my first w7 and w6. there should be a rule in this contest that
KL7's and KH6's portable in the lower 48 MUST use a their KH/KL calls. My
heart can't take that much excitement and immediate letdown. Twice.
Needless to say, the real KL and KH6 contacts went wanting. As did a number
of other states: DE, RI, ND, SD. NH was funny. They must have gotten home
from a town meeting all at the same time. I worked my first Sunday
afternoon. Within 10 minutes, I had worked four others....all during one CQ
run. when it rains, it pours. There weren't as many 6's as I had hoped
would show up when we finally got prop to that area. But, I was happy with
what I got. Colorado was booming in Sunday afternoon, when they were
nowhere to be heard Saturday afternoon.
Did I mention the rate meter got up over 115 for about 20 minutes at one point
during the contest?
Isn't ten meters fun?
The old timer had it right: There's no meters like ten meters!
Next year, a dedicated 10m, no-less-than-four-element beam pointing
South-South-East. :-) (hmmm...I may have said that last year, too....)
Also, Monday brought me ADSL connectivity to the Internet. KG5U-webcam of his
contest activity (while QRP, of course) cannot be far behind. Look out,
K1TTT!!
73,
dale, kg5u
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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