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[3830] IARU K4XD SO Mixed HP

To: 3830@contesting.com, work@tourstar.net
Subject: [3830] IARU K4XD SO Mixed HP
From: webform@b4h.net
Reply-to: work@tourstar.net
Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2008 06:38:29 -0700
List-post: <3830@contesting.com">mailto:3830@contesting.com>
                    IARU HF World Championship

Call: K4XD
Operator(s): K4XD
Station: K4XD

Class: SO Mixed HP
QTH: Raleigh
Operating Time (hrs): 7.5

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Zones  HQ Mults
-------------------------------------
  160:    7      1      1       2
   80:   25      1      8       4
   40:   98      0     13      15
   20:   78     73     16      29
   15:   23      0      6       7
   10:    8      2      4       3
-------------------------------------
Total:  239     77     48      60  Total Score = 76,896

Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club

Comments:

What a nice break from the summer contest doldrums!  It seemed like HQ stations
were everywhere, thanks for all the work to put them on the air.  This was a
part time effort for me, contesting for the sheer fun of it.  Mostly S&P but
managed to find a couple of unusually primo run frequencies around 14.015 and
7.015 so enjoyed seeing how "the other 10% lives" for a little while.  Spent
the last 35 minutes on 7.015 and watched the rate meter top 150 for 5 minutes,
that was exhilarating!  Only one new band-entity, first CW EK.  

EU on 20 was pretty dismal in the first hour of the contest so I was steeling
myself for a painful slog.  The first hour was mostly US stations, although
there were half a dozen HQ's - SP, YV, VE, OK, K, and LU.  I worked W1AW/9 in
the second hour, always nice to work the home IARU station. OY was pounding in
on 20M and got them in the log too.  Only a couple of EU's in the second hour.

Time to go work on the pool -- having been gone all week it needed it!  Didn't
come back until 1800, but by then 10M was showing some life although I only had
one EU station.  15M on the other hand was nicely open to EU.  I went "out of
contest" long enough to work two EA's and a CT on 6M, both new ones there for
me.  At 1830 I went back to 20M and now EU was starting to shine.  Very solid
SSB contacts from southern EU, and I stayed on 20M for 91 Q's and a couple of
hours.  (Yeah, not exactly neck snapping rate but it was still fun!).

Social obligations in the form of a Steve Winwood / Tom Petty concert took me
away from the dials until midnight -- great show if you're into them, highly
recommended.  My ears were ringing from the concert, next time I'll have to try
to tune the ringing to 700 Hz so I have a built-in CW zero-beat tone in my
head.

I decided to start at 160M and work my way up, since I figured 160M would peter
out sooner than the other bands.  Only a few signals on 160M but they were loud
and clear including EA8, and there was really very little summer time QRN.  The
sunspot gods may not be smiling on us at the moment, but Es and clear weather
definitely made this contest more fun than it should have been.  I spent about
45 minutes on 80M and picked up 20 Q's, mostly K/VE but EA8, EA, CT, 9A, HK and
couple of LU's too.  I decided to see what was up on 40M and then grab some
sleep.  Got about 40 Q's on 40, it kept me awake until 0530.  Very nice EU
propagation with LZ, LX, EI, LY, OM, G, HA, OH, S5, HB, EA, SP, F, 9A, CT, YO,
and DL all making it into the log.  Also HC8 who had a great pileup going at
1AM local here, VP9, V3, J3, and LU.  Well worth staying up after midnight with
ringing ears!

I opened my eyes enough to see it was 6AM and decided I wasn't going to be
setting any records with 7 hours at the dials so snored until 7:20AM local,
then decided to drag myself out of bed and see if I could have some fun running
40M for the last half hour.  Good call!  I parked on 7.015 and picked up 54 Q's
in 30 minutes.  I know that's de rigeur for many of you but it was a lot of fun
to be fresh meat for the last 30 minutes!  Sorry to the weak ones I couldn't dig
out, but there were enough strong stations that I decided to follow the money. 
I did work a half dozen stations at the noise level and I noticed that it took
a while to get a flow of stations going again after finishing a "slow Q."  

Also was interesting playing with my CQ speed a bit to see what affect it had. 
Nothing drastic, but setting WriteLog at 22WPM would seem to attract more casual
stations, but it felt slow and I would crank it up to 25 or 28WPM to see if that
made any difference.  I guess it's hard to do a controlled experiment here but
it would be interesting to hear people's strategies for CQ speeds on different
bands and at different points in the test.  I guess if I was working most of
the contest, by the end I would be working mostly casual stations and slower
would be better.  Being fresh meat towards the end, probably makes sense to CQ
faster.

That's all from here.  Thanks to everyone for the fun and Q's and CU in the
next one.

Icom 756 Pro II
Tokyo Hy-Power HL-1.5KFX
Homebrew Hexbeam 20-6M
Cobra Ultralight Sr. for 80M, Jr. for 40M
165' Inv L for 160M
WriteLog


Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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