ARRL 10-Meter Contest
Call: W6YX
Operator(s): N7MH,W6RK
Station: W6YX
Class: M/S HP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 29
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
CW: 297 33
SSB: 376 23
-------------------
Total: 673 56 Total Score = 108,640
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
A planned family gathering with visiting relatives on Sunday meant that I was
going to miss several hours of prime operating time in this year's 10-meter
contest so I tried to get some of our other operators to help with a full-time
M/S effort instead of trying S/O as I did last year.
I had planned to arrive an hour before the contest started but got stuck in a
meeting at work that took much longer than I expected and started the contest
25 minutes late. In addition to local QSOs the band was initially open to AZ,
NM and UT and HC8GR was worked, but no other DX was heard.
For much of the evening the only non-local stations that could be heard were
from SD and CO, while a few MT stations and one VE5 called. A VE6 called but
faded before I got the full call and then disappeared. An unexpected DX
opening lasted from 0240 to 0250 and I worked OA, PY, CX and XE plus a TX
station, all on CW.
Risto, W6RK, showed up around 0300 and stayed until just before 0700 when we
quit for the night. Risto hooked up our second 10-meter antenna so we then had
2 working Yagis. In the later evening we worked WY, BC and another TX station.
We finished the first evening with 187 Q's but notably missing were WA and OR.
I had hoped to start up again before 1400, but overslept and started a little
after 1400. I don't think I missed much. The first station worked was NG7Z in
WA on what sounded like meteor scatter. The band shifted spotlight propagation
across the same areas that had been open the previous evening, but also
included W7RN in NV. K1TO and AD4ES were the only east coast stations heard on
Saturday. K1TO was worked when I first heard him just before 1700 and was heard
on and off through the morning. A KL7 in NE called, one of several KL7's, none
of which were in AK.
Just before 2000Z I started hearing LU1HF, but he was running a pileup and not
workable. Then the floodgates opened and the band was open with strong signals
to PY, LU, CX and CE and 44 South American stations were worked between 1959 and
2134Z. No Caribbean or Central America stations were heard the entire contest.
After the South America opening it was all CA for an hour with the exception of
AI0Q in MN. At 2249 I was called by a loud OR station while beaming toward
South America. He was slightly weaker on the antenna pointed north, but within
5 minutes the direct path to OR and WA was stronger than the backscatter from
the southeast. The main opening to the northern W7 states and southwest Canada
lasted until about 0120, but the band continued to be open to this area with
sporadic weak signals much later into the evening.
Right after one of my switches to CW during this opening I thought I heard
UA0FAI coming back to my CQ, but it turned out he was CQing right next to me so
I worked him for my only Asia QSO of the contest. Later in the evening I worked
KH7Y on CW and moved him to SSB for an ESP QSO. I heard him get moved later
when he was much louder and followed him up to confirm that the earlier QSO had
been logged on both ends. KH6ZM was also very loud later. I still hadn't heard
or worked any ZL or VK though.
The rate got very slow, but I stuck around to see if there'd be another evening
opening to South America. There wasn't... I could see on the spotting network
that east coast stations were working into the northwest but I never heard
anything east of MT and quit for the night at 0520.
I had to leave for the scheduled family gathering at 1645 so I decided to get
an early start at 1200 to see if there was any meteor scatter action. There
wasn't, but it had been pouring rain with strong winds and when I started up
again I discovered that I was no longer able to listen on the second radio in
the phone band while CQing on CW because of horrendous popping and hash. After
a few hours whatever was causing this apparently dried out enough that I was
able to again comfortably use a second radio. Rain static had been up to S9 at
times on Saturday but only caused problems with a few QSOs.
The rate was very slow on Sunday. In addition to the 2 hours of not working
anyone between 1200 and 1400 there is another 81 minute gap in the log in the
1500 hour when I was on the air but nothing was worked.
Finally in the 1600 hour I began working a few stations in the west and just
before I needed to leave I heard K1TO, much louder than on Saturday. I heard
and worked another couple of FL stations, then had to leave.
When I returned around 2130, Dave, AA6XV, had come to the station and was
working the contest using low power on one of the stations with his own
callsign. There was quite a bit of interference between the two stations when
on the same mode so I mostly didn't call CQ but instead tried to S&P for new
mults. ZL, HC, AL and GA rounded out the mults worked. I tuned across VP8NO
and called him, but missed his number due to the interstation interference. By
the time I got a repeat from him and sent my exchange he had faded and didn't
make it into the log.
Here are some counts on the mults worked and a rate sheet.
Mult SSB/CW
---- -------
CA 173/117
WA 71/ 38
AZ 8/ 23
MT 16/ 10
OR 19/ 7
BC 11/ 10
CO 8/ 11
ID 12/ 7
UT 4/ 9
TX 5/ 5
WY 6/ 3
NM 1/ 7
AB 3/ 2
SD 3/ 1
AL / 3
FL / 3
HI 1/ 2
NV 1/ 2
SK 1/ 2
GA / 2
LA / 2
KS 1/
MN / 1
NE 1/
TN / 1
PY 21/ 7
LU 7/ 12
CE 2/ 2
CX 1/ 2
HC / 1
HC8 / 1
OA / 1
UA0 / 1
XE / 1
ZL / 1
-------------- Q S O R a t e S u m m a r y -
Hour Rate Total Pct
------------------------------------------------
0000 41 41 6.0
0100 44 85 6.4
0200 48 133 7.0
0300 16 149 2.3
0400 21 170 3.1
0500 7 177 1.0
0600 10 187 1.5
0700 0 187 0.0
0800 0 187 0.0
0900 0 187 0.0
1000 0 187 0.0
1100 0 187 0.0
1200 0 187 0.0
1300 0 187 0.0
1400 3 190 0.4
1500 10 200 1.5
1600 20 220 2.9
1700 17 237 2.5
1800 47 284 6.9
1900 23 307 3.4
2000 48 355 7.0
2100 20 375 2.9
2200 21 396 3.1
2300 112 508 16.4
0000 75 583 11.0
0100 30 613 4.4
0200 17 630 2.5
0300 3 633 0.4
0400 2 635 0.3
0500 1 636 0.1
0600 0 636 0.0
0700 0 636 0.0
0800 0 636 0.0
0900 0 636 0.0
1000 0 636 0.0
1100 0 636 0.0
1200 0 636 0.0
1300 0 636 0.0
1400 3 639 0.4
1500 1 640 0.1
1600 12 652 1.8
1700 0 652 0.0
1800 0 652 0.0
1900 0 652 0.0
2000 0 652 0.0
2100 4 656 0.6
2200 8 664 1.2
2300 9 673 1.3
------------------------------------------------------
Total 673 673 100.0
73,
-Mike, N7MH
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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