IARU HF World Championship
Call: N3BB
Operator(s): N3BB
Station: N3BB
Class: SO CW HP
QTH: Austin, TX
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Zones HQ Mults
-------------------------------------
160: 21 0 5 2
80: 109 0 12 16
40: 665 0 28 34
20: 836 0 28 42
15: 324 0 18 21
10: 52 0 5 3
-------------------------------------
Total: 2007 0 96 119 Total Score = 1,306,125
Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club
Comments:
This was a very trying contest at times, but filled with some major "highs."
There was almost nothing on ten meters except some US and VE E-skip, and little
heard to South America. Fifteen was poor to Europe and did not open to JA other
than one or two signals heard. One-sixty here was pretty useless.
Forty meters was spectacular and Europe was workable before sunset on a S&P
basis with the very hot sun well up in the sky and the temperature nearly a
hundred degrees F. I started Search and Pouncing to EU at 23:45Z, or 6:45 PM
local summer time, and was able to knock off many of the large HQ stations. The
band was very "hot" with lots of atmospheric noise and huge signals. It was
noisy and crazy and open like crazy for at least two hours before the sun set.
I was able to run EU on 40 meters starting around 01:45Z and had a very good
run of US/EU stations until 03:00Z. That might sound like "who cares" to a
east coast US station but it's extremely hard to do from central Texas and I
was thrilled. At 03Z, I needed to spend some time on 80 before the sun rose in
EU and was able to work most of the loud EU HQ stations and some others, on a S
and P basis. I returned to running 40 meters at 03:25Z and was able to continue
to run 40 to EU until 05:45Z when 20 opened to JA and Asia and I switched to 20
meters.
Twenty was flat in the days, as usual, but opened to Asia and JA between 06Z
and 07Z (1 to 2 AM here), with a nice little run of 35 JAs and HQ stations in
Korean, Japan, and China. It was nice to see twenty open to the north over
night as it has not happened for quite a while. Looking back on this, is sounds
like a minor little thing in terms of numbers but it livened up the night and
was a lot of fun.
After that, as 20 began to fade, it was back to 40 and 80. 40 meters was
runnable to somewhere all night. The JAs started to come in a little after 08Z,
and the run was one of the best I have experienced. At its peak, the band was
quiet and even QRP JAs were S7. Other Asian and Oceanic stations including 9M6,
YB, KG6, ZL, VK, etc were loud.
By 11Z, I was concerned about getting a JA on 80 meters and found JA7COI who
dug me out of the mud after several overs. He was the only one I heard, which
is amazing based on the spectacular opening on 40 meters. I also worked the JA
HQ station on 80 although they had lots of trouble copying the US stations who
were calling.
As the contest wound down, I was back to running JAs on 40 and approaching my
"dream goals" of 2000 QSOs and 1.3 million points. The contacts were continuing
on track, but I was short of the score by 25 or 30K points, and then, at 11:59Z,
a very watery and difficult station called with "HQ" in the suffix. It turned
out to be HL0HQ and that multiplier added the final little push to put me over.
Thanks guys!
It was a hard working contest, and lots of effort to get ready in the heat
here. I still have occasional spells of arcing line noise, and it comes and
goes. But it "went" for all but several hours and I was able to work around it
with the noise blanker on the MPs for the louder stations. This cost me some
weaker stations but all in all the weather was good in the sense that we had no
storms at all and the atmosphere was quiet. It was a PR for me in this contest
and it's always a thrill to be in there with the best CW operators all over the
world.
Jim George N3BB
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
|