CQ WW RTTY WPX Contest
Call: P49X
Operator(s): W0YK
Station: P49Y/P40L
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: Aruba
Operating Time (hrs): 30
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Pts
------------------
80: 516 3082
40: 1147 6850
20: 866 2587
15: 529 1569
10: 0 0
------------------
Total: 3058 14088 Prefixes = 742 Total Score = 10,453,296
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
At the end, this claimed score is less than 1.5% lower than last year. The
numeric details are also very close. But, the journey was quite different.
First of all, my sincere thanks to the hundreds of stations who worked P49X
this weekend. You make the contest an exhillarating experience on this end!
It's too bad we all can't know what its like first hand.
I began the contest with one Alpha crippled and only able to run 500 watts. I
kept it on 80 and 15, although I agrued with myself about whether the lower
power should be there or on the money bands of 40 and 20. Who knows? My band
breakdown numbers are very close to last year with the largest difference being
100 less QSOs on 15. But, that can be explained by propagation and subsequent
activity level on that band. I suspect the main disadvantage of 500 vs. 1500
watts was psychological, but I was well aware of that factor and tried hard to
minimize it. As N6BV says, no matter what your station actual capability,
you're only as loud as you "think" you are.
For the first time ever, I had catastropic computer problems during the
contest. Just one hour in, the 40 meter computer froze completly. This
required a hard reset that not only wastes a few minutes, but causes the loss
of the carefully developed run frequency on that side. And, trying to maintain
a presence on 80 while renewing the software on the failed computer was
challenging and distracting. It "helped" that at 01z, 80 was not doing much
from here so it didn't need 100% of my attention.
Although I got the computer back the network wasn't quite right for some reason
and I ran the next eight hours with the two logs unsync'd. Compounding this
issue was the 74 practice QSOs that must have not gotten erased from one of the
backup files on one of the three computers ... they integrated into the contest
log, inflating the totals and giving me a few non-real dupes for those I had
worked on the same band during the practice Thursday night. Not a big deal,
all of this, as I straightened it all out at my 09-13z break.
For the first few hours Saturday morning, then, the computers and network
seemed solid as it usually is. But, once again, right in the middle of the
peak rate mid-day, the same computer (20 meters this time) got confused and
WriteLog's networking failed. So, I went the rest of the day until my 19z
hour-long break to reset everything again. Fortunately, for the rest of the
contest, the computers and network remained solid.
So, after my three-hour sleep break early Sunday morning (09-14z), I start
getting the radios and amps moved from 80/40 to 20/15 and discover the 20-meter
Yagi is fatally bad. The VSWR is infinite, although it seemed to work OK on
receive. Luckily we have a C31 tri-bander on once side of the station, but in
this case the wrong side, so I did a bit of rewiring to "move" it to the 20
side where I wanted to run 20 meters (due to the amplifier problem).
That's most of the whining part of the event. The operating part was a lot of
fun as always. Despite my initial rate being ruined by the computer problem, I
rallied on the low bands and actually wound up ahead a bit compared to last year
when I took my first break nine hours in. However, Saturday's rates on 20 and
15 were lower and I fell behind. This was discouraging, but every year can't
always be as good or better than the prior years. By Sunday morning's break,
with only 2-1/2 hours of operating time left, I was down by 200 QSOs and
several hundred points. The mults seemed be in about the same place. Last
year, Sunday was relatively much slower that Saturday on 20 and 15, so I was
expecting to end up significantly behind last year.
Then, 20 and 15 from 1430-1700z Sunday exploded with rate. Both bands had
instant pile-ups (thanks, Packet!) that didn't let up. It was hard to let go
with my contest clock rolled over to 30 hours. This last ditch spurt got me to
only 58 QSOs behind last year and only 165K points lower. Incredibly, the mults
are down by two out of 744, dead on the predictable trendline of
QSOs-per-prefix.
Sunday's rate was the highest (QSO) rate across both years. Of course, by far
the highes point rate is during the first six hours on 80 and 40. But, this
Sunday's experience makes me wonder what 80 and 40 will be like at the end of
the 48-hour contest period and whether I should have put my last 2.5 hours
there instead.
After I finish breakfast (it's 2pm now in Aruba), P43A and I start removing
antennas and tower sections in preparation for a complete station rebuild when
AE6Y, W6LD and N6BT arrive on Wednesday. No rest for contest addicts!
Once again, many thanks to station owners Andy, AE6Y, and John, W6LD, for
sharing their wonderful "cottage" with me. And, of course, all the contest
participants, especially the more casual ones who make contesting the great
sport that it is for us more serious types.
73,
Ed - P49X (W0YK)
80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total %
NA 329 643 487 351 0 1810 59.2
EU 173 442 354 161 0 1130 37.0
AS 4 33 11 0 0 48 1.6
SA 5 14 10 16 0 45 1.5
AF 3 6 2 0 0 11 0.4
OC 2 9 2 1 0 14 0.5
QSO/Pref by hour and band
Hour 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total Cumm OffTime
D1-0000Z 8/6 77/64 --+-- --+-- --+-- 85/70 85/70
D1-0100Z 32/11 95/59 - - - 127/70 212/140
D1-0200Z 34/11 76/32 - - - 110/43 322/183
D1-0300Z 42/20 95/50 - - - 137/70 459/253
D1-0400Z 45/17 86/33 - - - 131/50 590/303
D1-0500Z 50/13 67/21 - - - 117/34 707/337
D1-0600Z 56/17 68/28 - - - 124/45 831/382
D1-0700Z 32/2 54/16 - - - 86/18 917/400
D1-0800Z 28/8 28/6 --+-- --+-- --+-- 56/14 973/414 10
D1-0900Z - - - - - 0/0 973/414 60
D1-1000Z - - - - - 0/0 973/414 60
D1-1100Z - - - - - 0/0 973/414 60
D1-1200Z - - 9/2 7/1 - 16/3 989/417 50
D1-1300Z - - 69/15 33/1 - 102/16 1091/433
D1-1400Z - - 81/16 57/5 - 138/21 1229/454
D1-1500Z - - 83/19 72/7 - 155/26 1384/480
D1-1600Z --+-- --+-- 84/7 59/11 --+-- 143/18 1527/498
D1-1700Z - - 69/13 17/2 - 86/15 1613/513
D1-1800Z - - 70/11 53/6 - 123/17 1736/530
D1-1900Z - - 60/8 60/8 - 120/16 1856/546 12
D1-2000Z - - - - - 0/0 1856/546 60
D1-2100Z - 21/4 50/10 - - 71/14 1927/560
D1-2200Z - 28/7 47/8 - - 75/15 2002/575
D1-2300Z - 32/6 53/15 - - 85/21 2087/596
D2-0000Z 12/6 37/7 25/5 --+-- --+-- 74/18 2161/614
D2-0100Z 16/3 76/14 - - - 92/17 2253/631
D2-0200Z 19/3 48/10 - - - 67/13 2320/644
D2-0300Z 16/1 53/7 - - - 69/8 2389/652
D2-0400Z 28/2 53/12 - - - 81/14 2470/666
D2-0500Z 38/0 45/8 - - - 83/8 2553/674
D2-0600Z 28/4 40/8 - - - 68/12 2621/686
D2-0700Z 26/2 39/7 - - - 65/9 2686/695
D2-0800Z 6/0 29/7 --+-- --+-- --+-- 35/7 2721/702 13
D2-0900Z - - - - - 0/0 2721/702 60
D2-1000Z - - - - - 0/0 2721/702 60
D2-1100Z - - - - - 0/0 2721/702 60
D2-1200Z - - - - - 0/0 2721/702 60
D2-1300Z - - - - - 0/0 2721/702 60
D2-1400Z - - 26/2 21/5 - 47/7 2768/709 36
D2-1500Z - - 71/8 70/9 - 141/17 2909/726
D2-1600Z --+-- --+-- 68/8 80/8 --+-- 148/16 3057/742
D2-1700Z - - 1/0 - - 1/0 3058/742
Total: 516/1261147/406 866/147 529/63 0/0
80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total
4J 2 2
4X 2 1 3
7X 1 1
9A 1 4 6 11
CM 2 1 3
CN 2 2
CT 2 1 3
CT3 1 2 3
D4 1 1
DL 33 77 75 38 223
E7 2 2
EA 4 19 11 7 41
EA6 1 1
EA8 1 1 2 4
ER 1 1
EU 1 4 4 9
F 14 23 15 9 61
FM 1 1
G 11 17 27 7 62
GI 1 2 2 5
GM 3 2 5 1 11
GU 1 1 1 3
GW 1 2 1 2 6
HA 4 8 9 5 26
HB 1 4 2 3 10
HC 1 1
HI 1 1 2
HK 1 1 1 3
HR 1 1
I 14 30 30 32 106
J3 1 1
J6 1 1
JA 11 5 16
K 292 573 428 307 1600
KG4 1 1 1 1 4
KH6 1 4 1 1 7
KL 2 1 3
KP4 2 1 1 4
LA 6 6
LU 2 3 3 8
LX 1 1 1 3
LY 2 1 2 1 6
LZ 2 4 2 1 9
OA 1 1 2
OE 1 5 2 8
OH 6 9 13 4 32
OK 11 25 16 5 57
OM 1 9 3 4 17
ON 4 3 9 5 21
OY 1 1
OZ 1 1 1 4 7
P4 2 2 1 2 7
PA 1 9 9 5 24
PY 1 4 5 9 19
S5 4 12 7 4 27
SM 7 8 9 3 27
SP 11 28 22 3 64
SV 1 10 2 2 15
TA1 1 1
TF 1 1
TI 1 1 2
TI9 1 1
TK 1 1
UA 10 62 33 2 107
UA2 1 1
UA9 4 13 5 22
UK 2 2
UN 2 2
UR 11 35 13 5 64
V3 1 1 1 1 4
VE 26 50 46 32 154
VK 1 1
VU 1 1
XE 2 8 7 8 25
YB 1 1
YL 6 6 4 16
YN 1 1
YO 1 7 5 2 15
YU 3 7 3 2 15
YV 1 4 5
Z3 1 2 1 4
ZF 1 1 1 3
ZL 1 4 5
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
______________________________________________
3830 mailing list
3830@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/3830
|