ARRL 160-Meter Contest
Call: W2ID
Operator(s): W2ID
Station: W2ID
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: NNJ
Operating Time (hrs): 26
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 790 Sections = 89 Countries = 0 Total Score = 144,625
Club: Frankford Radio Club
Comments:
After such great condx on 160m in CQWWCW, and the S-zero background noise at my
new QTH, I was really looking forward to doing well in this contest, even just
using the Inverted L for both transmit and receive, since I had no receive
antennas up yet. Figured it would be best to run low power since I didn't want
to be an alligator.
Worked Friday, got home and threw the station together, and fired up the rig 5
minutes before the start, and WHAM - it was S9 to S9+10 powerline noise across
not just 160M but across the entire HF spectrum. Clearly something has gone
very wrong on a local powerline. I tried shutting off all circuit breakers in
the house, and ruled out the possibility it was caused internally. So I decided
to turn on the NB and make the best of it. Well, Friday night was severe pain.
My profuse apologies to all the guys who called me and didn't get a response,
or who had to repeat everything 10x or more. I worked all the loud CQers and
then tried CQing myself, but anybody weaker than S8-S9 was simply not copyable.
I did my best, but it was very frustrating, and I was bordering on quitting
more than a few times. (Actually, I did quit once or twice, but then I fell off
the wagon.)
On Saturday, I decided to try something different, since I had already worked
everyone I was going to be able to work. So I found a 500' hunk of wire and
tacked it onto some trees and ran it in random directions just to spool it all
out. Technically, it was just an unterminated random wire. Sunday morning's
dawn revealed that much of it was laying on the ground. But no worries, it did
at least reduce the noise level to S3. Even though signals were MUCH weaker too,
at least the S/N ratio was better and I was able to make a lot more QSOs
Saturday night. I was disappointed to see that I ended up almost within
striking distance of W2XL's Division Record, and can't help but wonder if I
could have made those additional necessary QSOs if the QRN hadn't been there.
Oh well, it was still a lot of fun anyway! Fast rates, huge participation, and
a lot of great operators with really good ears.
I just got back from driving around the neighborhood, and with the car AM
radio, was easily able to identify the offending section of powerline.
Tomorrow, I am going to call the power company so that they will have plenty of
time to fix it before ARRL DX in February.
Again everyone, huge apologies for my not being able to hear you. At least I
managed to get 790 of you into the log.
And a final piece of contest trivea: While I was debugging the QRN issue, I
discovered that K9DX and K1LZ were the only stations on the band that were
strong and completely copyable with no antenna whatsoever connected to the
radio.
p.s. This submission form is asking for Sections and Countries counts. N1MM
just says "89 Sections", it doesn't give a Sections and Countries breakdown.
But I worked USA + VE + 17 other countries.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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