ARRL 10-Meter Contest
Call: W0SD
Operator(s): W0SD
Station: W0SD
Class: SO SSB HP
QTH: SOUTH DAKOTA
Operating Time (hrs): 30
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
CW:
SSB: 1244 64
-------------------
Total: 1244 64 Total Score = 159,232
Club:
Comments:
I never, ever thought I would see the day when I would work more DX than TX. I
doubt if I will ever see it again in my life time. It is all about giving it
your best effort each and every year and once in awhile things go your way!
The other challenge up in the frozen north land is maintenance. If something
breaks after November 1st your are in a real hurt!!! It is also tough to
rotate antennas with the cold and wind.
First of all thanks to Joe W0DB, Arliss W7XU and Bill N0ARU for coming over to
my QTH a number of times and helping me with antenna projects this past year.
Also thanks to my XYL Edith for all her help. She is a ground crew expert!!!
Also in the late 90's thanks go to AC0M, N0ABE, KB0IKW. WD0T and others for
help in putting up a lot of hardware.
Thanks to all of you who hung in there until I could hear you. For those that
I never heard I want to sincerely thank you for your effort and hopefully we
can work in the future. Our main antenna was a 5 element on a 30 foot boom at
just under 200 foot fed with 7/8" heliax. We have a 8877 at 1500 watts. We
use a Elecraft K3 and used the 1.8 khz roofing filter when we had good Sporadic
E. The NB on the K3 is excellent as we had some line noise on the lower antenna
to the SW at times with the sub zero WX and 30 mph winds. The lower antenna is
at 100 feet. I have a lower 5 element at 55 feet(can be in phase with the one
at 100 feet), a TH3 fixed south at 90 feet for RX and a TH-11 at 70 feet. I
really never used them as the top two antennas were so superior at the greater
height. My only wish is to have two antenna's just under 200 feet up. The
high antenna hears better with more signal strength and also is pretty much
dead quiet other than when the wind blew real hard for awhile on Friday night
and Saturday and it was sub zero I had a very slight amount of a loose
connection noise.
I though everyone did a very nice job of operating and were very courteous.
Thanks so much for taking the time to work me!!!
I thought this was the best ever for people using phonetics! I really
appreciate that, please keep it up and if you do not use phonetics please start
and use something "standard". Quite a number of operators do not understand the
significance of meteors in the 10 meter contest. You "HAVE" to be quick and
just say your call and report fast. Hey I know my call! You can send my call
at the end like W0SD QSL
For some reason sometimes I can not get one letter and it often is because I
can not understand your phonetic for that letter. Try changing to a standard
phonetic, they were chosen for a reason. Also there are quite a few just
saying part of their call. I find that to be a big disadvantage and waste of
time. Just give your whole call and if I get it that speeds things up and if I
don't I will come back with what I have. It is not unusual to have 5 people I
can hear at once plus I am sure some I don't hear when the band is open good.
I will just pick out what I can and go with it. I tend to ignore those that try
partial calls and work the others first as it is a lot faster for me.
This is the 13th year in a row in the 10 meter contest starting in 1997. They
have all been in the top 10 other than 2003. When the sunspots get good we
really struggle to make the top 10. I am 66 years old and I don't think my
hearing is as good as it was in 1997 so the phonetics really help. Anyway
there are a lot of weak signals during all parts of the sunspot cycle so how
can you get through when I am having trouble hearing you? Use standard
phonetics, be very persistent, say your call, listen say your call listen, say
your call listen. Try and hear what I am saying as I often ask for just the
prefix or just the suffix or the missing letter. If you can tell I have the
prefix or suffix OK just give the part I have messed up. You can go W7 Alpha
Bravo Charlie, Alpha Bravo Charlie, Alpha Bravo Charlie. The main thing is to
be persistent with lots or quick repeats with short pauses. Hopefully this
will help some of you to get me to copy you correctly.
We were able to work all the states other than Alaska. We did not get DC. We
got all of Canada except VE4 and no Maritime or no Yukon or NWT. The summary is
at the end so you can see what we worked for DX. We worked no DX to the south
on Saturday but quite a lot on Sunday. I have worked a good number of DX
station to the south every year since 1997 but after Saturday I was puzzled as
I had zero!!! However Sunday there they were. I suspect the K Index was high
enough to be a problem. Todd operating at KD0S really noticed a correlation.
I have not worked VK or ZL since 2006. One other note I worked the most CA
this year than I have since the low part of the sunspot cycle began. I think
the poorest area was AZ where I can usually work quite a few. This year I
would say I only worked about 10 people in AZ. One other real odd thing is I
did not have a FL or LA until Sunday which is unbelievable. Especially FL as I
can alway work it. Finally about noon on it opened and I worked lots and lots of
FL.
10M makes me humble because if there are not some meteors or sporadic E you are
done. You just can not brute force it. I had from 1859z until 2049z on
Saturday with one qso and that was likely ground wave with NE. That is almost 2
hours with just one QSO!!! That is the driest period I can ever remember. The
real bad times seem to be after the meteors disappear, you have worked most of
the locals of which there are not many up here so it there is not sporadic E I
really struggle.
Following are the break down by the hours and then the country break down.
QSO/Sec+Dx by hour and band
Hour 10M CW 10M PHO Total Cumm OffTime
D1-0000Z --+-- 8/3 8/3 8/3
D1-0100Z - 4/3 4/3 12/6
D1-0200Z - 11/6 11/6 23/12
D1-0300Z - 29/10 29/10 52/22
D1-0400Z - 18/1 18/1 70/23
D1-0500Z - 8/1 8/1 78/24 28
D1-0600Z - - 0/0 78/24 60
D1-0700Z - - 0/0 78/24 60
D1-0800Z --+-- --+-- 0/0 78/24 60
D1-0900Z - - 0/0 78/24 60
D1-1000Z - - 0/0 78/24 60
D1-1100Z - - 0/0 78/24 60
D1-1200Z - - 0/0 78/24 60
D1-1300Z - 11/0 11/0 89/24 39
D1-1400Z - 65/11 65/11 154/35
D1-1500Z - 58/4 58/4 212/39
D1-1600Z --+-- 11/5 11/5 223/44
D1-1700Z - 13/1 13/1 236/45
D1-1800Z - 11/3 11/3 247/48
D1-1900Z - - 0/0 247/48 60
D1-2000Z - 10/0 10/0 257/48 48
D1-2100Z - 21/0 21/0 278/48
D1-2200Z - 45/0 45/0 323/48
D1-2300Z - 10/1 10/1 333/49 1
D2-0000Z --+-- --+-- 0/0 333/49 60
D2-0100Z - 8/0 8/0 341/49
D2-0200Z - 61/3 61/3 402/52
D2-0300Z - 146/0 146/0 548/52
D2-0400Z - 123/0 123/0 671/52
D2-0500Z - 56/0 56/0 727/52
D2-0600Z - 11/0 11/0 738/52 34
D2-0700Z - - 0/0 738/52 60
D2-0800Z --+-- --+-- 0/0 738/52 60
D2-0900Z - - 0/0 738/52 60
D2-1000Z - - 0/0 738/52 60
D2-1100Z - - 0/0 738/52 60
D2-1200Z - - 0/0 738/52 60
D2-1300Z - 6/1 6/1 744/53 35
D2-1400Z - 22/0 22/0 766/53
D2-1500Z - 21/2 21/2 787/55
D2-1600Z --+-- 14/0 14/0 801/55
D2-1700Z - 13/0 13/0 814/55
D2-1800Z - 37/0 37/0 851/55
D2-1900Z - 64/3 64/3 915/58
D2-2000Z - 61/2 61/2 976/60
D2-2100Z - 89/2 89/2 1065/62
D2-2200Z - 78/0 78/0 1143/62
D2-2300Z - 101/2 101/2 1244/64
Total: 0/0 1244/64
10M CW 10M PHO Total
6Y 1 1
CE 2 2
CX 1 1
HK 1 1
K 1153 1153
KH6 1 1
KP4 1 1
LU 28 28
PY 15 15
TI 1 1
VE 38 38
VP8 1 1
XE 1 1
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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