ARRL 10-Meter Contest
Call: W6YX
Operator(s): W6LD,W6RK,N7MH
Station: W6YX
Class: M/S HP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 25
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
CW: 687 90
SSB: 699 79
-------------------
Total: 1286 169 Total Score = 666,874
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
We didn't have an organized effort planned for this year's 10-meter contest and
I had a prior commitment on Saturday starting at 0000Z. I debated skipping the
contest but the 10-meter contest is one of my favorites so I decided to operate
as much as I could and hopefully someone else would help fill in for the time I
wasn't available.
I left my office early and managed to get to the W6YX shack only an hour after
the contest started. I quickly set up and discovered that I couldn't get the
interference between the SSB and CW radios below about S7. While mulling over
how to deal with the interference I started S&Ping in the CW band, hoping to
work any mults that were around since I wasn't sure we'd have the station
manned on Saturday at the same time of day.
Risto, W6RK, arrived about an hour after I did and started to work stations on
SSB which I had neglected. I went home for some family time for a few hours
and returned after 0600 and made a few Q's in the next hour at a very slow
rate. When we quit for the night we had 254 Q's in the log, not bad for
missing the first hour. Several Caribbean stations were worked very late in
the evening. When I was in KP2 earlier in the year I'd observed that calling
CQ on a dead 10 meter band late at night, not in a contest, produced answers
from across the US and Canada and into PY and LU.
I returned in the morning at 1400 which was a slow hour. I thought about the
interstation interference and realized that one difference is that in past
years the two antennas used by the two stations had been on different Six-Paks,
selected by separate antenna switches from each station. Something (a relay?)
had blown out in the 10 meter position of one of the Six-Paks so we'd moved the
second 10-meter Yagi onto the 160-meter position of the same Six-Pak as the
other 10-meter Yagi. I moved the second 10-meter Yagi into the 15-meter
position on the other Six-Pak and VOILA!! the interference was reduced to
virtually unhearable. Being able to set Auto-CQ on one radio while tuning
around on the other for weak signals is a big plus during slow rate periods.
The band opened to the east when I heard and worked K3WW at 1500 and then
several other W3 stations in PA and MD. At about 1545 the floodgates opened
and the band opened wide to MI and OH with the spotlight moving to the east and
south over the next hour. By 1700 the opening had moved to AR, MO and OK and
included all of the states on the southern border of the US. Our best
60-minute rate of 209 was between 1610 and 1709, a mixture of phone and CW
while trying to get the mults on both modes.
By 1715 the opening was limited to mostly TX and FL with a few other gulf
states, NM and AZ occasionally calling in. In the middle of this I was called
by K7SS for one of only two WA Q's in the contest, both on CW. By the 1800
hour the big rates were gone and we had good openings into South and Central
America, Mexico and the Caribbean. During the rest of the day I was surprised
by the infrequent caller from VE2, VE3, NY or IN but it was mostly south of the
border with a few FL stations popping out of the noise every once in a while.
Later in the afternoon I tried working into JA and spent some time CQing in the
direction of VK and ZL. Several weak VK's were worked but no JA's were heard.
Signals from AK and VE8 were really strong at times. I saw VY1EI spotted a few
times but never heard him.
The spotting network was of some value in this contest, mainly for working DX
stations. We were getting RBN spots mixed with the regular cluster and most of
the domestic spots could not be heard. The nearest RBN skimmers are in southern
California and Utah, not close enough to represent our propagation in the San
Francisco Bay Area. I spotted all stations that weren't already in our bandmap
to the spotting network, including many CW stations that hadn't been picked up
by RBN.
Just before I had to leave at 0000 I saw NH2T spotted and worked Dave for a new
mult. We never heard E51, VK9N or other exotic Pacific stations other than
FO8RZ who was worked on Friday. I wish I had been able to stay for the early
evening hours and perhaps work some of these stations.
After getting home at 0630 I considered visiting the station for a short stint
but the 0600-hour rate had been so dismal on Friday that I slept instead and
got back to the station at 1430 on Sunday. No one was worked until 1451 and
that was when the second WA station called. The band didn't open to the east
until much later than on Saturday. VE1OP rose above the noise and was worked
at 1550. I also heard VY2ZM but he was busy working stations to the east and
gave me a ? once but otherwise CQed in my face.
Last year's contest had propagation to SD (W0SD, KD0S) for almost the entire
contest. This year I couldn't hear either station when they were spotted until
finally at 1614 on Sunday I pointed the antenna to the south and got W0SD on
backscatter. That was the only time any SD was heard.
After Saturday's spectacular 1600 hour I managed to only eke out 9 QSOs in the
same hour on Sunday. VE9DX was worked late in the hour, followed by a ZS.
Around 1700 the band began to open to the northeast US - PA, NY, NH, ME.
Sunday's opening started out slower than Saturday's and I tried to dual-CQ on
phone and CW at first. Once there was a small pileup on either mode the timing
of the dual-CQing was impossible to maintain and I ended up abandoning the CQ on
the other radio, usually when there were several callers. I haven't mastered
SO2R on phone yet and without an SO2R box I was listening to both audio streams
most of the time and had a hard time shifting focus from one to the other at the
appropriate time. A loud CW signal would totally distract me from the callsign
I was trying to copy on phone in the other ear, and vice versa.
The Sunday opening peaked around 1800 and seemed to be a broader opening with
less of a spotlight effect. I continued to work stations in the northeast US
until 1930 and then all that could be heard were FL, TX and other places south.
This continued through most of the rest of the contest.
John, W6LD, joined in for the last couple of hours. I tried to find stations
on phone while John alternated between running and S&P on CW. John finally
worked one JA that had been spotted but had no success in CQing in that
direction. The last hour was the Alabama QSO party. Almost every station that
called in was either in AL or AZ.
We ended up working all but 5 states. We missed OR (heard NK7U briefly but
they didn't hear us). We also missed MN, IA, VT and ND, none of which were
ever heard. We missed most of the VE mults, only getting VE1/2/3/8/9. We
worked 21 of the Mexican states for around 30 total Mexican mults.
73,
-Mike, N7MH
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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