CQ 160-Meter Contest, SSB
Call: N7GP
Operator(s): N5IA, W7MCO, K7JEM
Station: N7GP
Class: Multi-Op HP
QTH: AZ, DM52
Operating Time (hrs): 30
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 669 State/Prov = 52 Countries = 12 Total Score = 98,880
Club: Cactus Radio Club
Comments:
Why do we like Topband???? Because we never know what to expect from this piece
of spectrum. I thought we were on the way down in the cycle towards better
propagation. Not this winter contest season!
Expecting to increase our score once again in the ARRL 160 contest in December,
this group at N7GP fell considerably short because the propagation was poor.
Now in the CQ 160 SSB, a full blown multi-op effort, the final tally is 65% of
the score posted in 2004. It is only 37% higher than last year's SOLP score.
So much for grousing. We haven't had any rain here in the desert southwest for
more than 100 days. Places like Tucson, El Paso and Phoenix are counting each
day as a new record without rain.
At the starting bell for the contest we were hearing the sound of thunder not
far away. Did we get any rain? Nope. Did we get one full night of continuous
S-9+ static crashes; even on the Beverages? Yep!!!
We watched the lightning strike map via the Internet as the cell progressed from
right over our heads, eastward across southern NM to El Paso, and by the time
sunup came Saturday morning it was still crashing bigtime in midwest Texas.
This was the biggest thing to watch; to see if the cell would dissipate or move
out of the boresight of our antennas to the east coast.
Our sincere apologies to the MANY stations we could not copy through the static
and to the many more whom I am sure we never heard a peep from. Have you ever
noticed that when you ask for a repeat that you always copy the same 2 or 3
letters and that the LOOOOOONG static crash covers the same portion of the
callsign every time? You could win money betting on that one.
So how poor was it for the 30 hours we operated? Max rate was THREE 50 Q hours;
two the 1st night and one the 2nd night. Only four more hours over the 30 Q/HR
rate; all the 1st night. 14 hours where the rate was from 15 to 30 Q/HR. And 8
hours with the rate at less than 15 Q/HR.
Now some highlights. We did work all 50 states, but it took the 2nd night to
get WY, RI and LA into the log. Congrats to our Mexican friends to the south
who made an alltime high of 14 entries. Bien hecho mis colegas del sur.
If it wasn't for the great number of operators who support the Topband contests
from California, we might as well not suit up for the game. In this one, CA
accounted for an astounding 15% (102 total) of our total contacts. Our own
state of AZ provides 47 Q's and Texas came in third with 37 Q's.
The Canadian participation as a whole was way down from our location. Only 4
provinces were worked. Congrats to the VE3 boys who put a total of 15, 5
pointers in the N7GP log.
Best DX to the east/southeast were the various caribbean stations plus P4 and YV
from South America. ZL1HY the first night and VK3IO the 2nd night were the
Pacific mults for us.
The final highlight of the contest was having Tom, W8JI get my attention at our
sunrise this morning. At that time of the day I am listening west exclusively
because the sun has been up for more than two hours on the east coast. Tom's
"super station" signal was very Q-5 when I switched to an east pointing
Beverage. Thanks Tom. That is real neat to do a 2,000 mile daylight to
daylight Q. Only one more Q went into the log this morning after Tom's call.
That tells you how little activity there is west of the Mississippi after the
sun comes up in the east.
There you have it folks. Let's hope that the cycle really does produce for next
winter's contests. This one has been a disappointment, score wise. But, as a
couple of famous quotations intone, "We'll be back!!!!!
73, de Milt, N5IA
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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