ARRL DX Contest, CW
Call: W2IRT
Operator(s): W2IRT
Station: W2IRT
Class: SOAB(A) HP
QTH: NJ
Operating Time (hrs): 24.6
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 80 52
80: 171 70
40: 260 83
20: 364 98
15: 177 90
10: 51 33
-------------------
Total: 1103 426 Total Score = 1,409,634
Club: Frankford Radio Club
Comments:
Well, that was interesting! This past week was far busier than I'd expected so I
wound up burning the candle at all three ends on the day leading up to the
contest and I started on relatively-little rest. Strike One. Then, Mother
Nature decided to be a royal PITA, with winds whistling up to 60 MPH, meaning I
had to keep the tower lowered at least half-way. I set the array on Europe and
decided to play on 40, 80 and 160 until my eyelids drooped so far that I
couldn't see the logger any more. By 0830z I was Captain Waste Product and
turned in, nervous as all hell with the gales outside doing their worst on my
tower.
And that's where the week-long lack-of-sleep came in. I was positively
exhausted come Saturday morning and I missed the 6:00 EU window. I didn't get
up till 8:30 and even then I was zombie-like well into the first morning. With
the tower down I missed a boatload of mults, and since I can't really run in CW
that made the day maddening. Strike Two. I basically treaded water all Saturday.
The winds died down around 2100z local time and I raised the tower as high as I
dared while still clearing the treetops in all directions (still down about 8'
below where it normally sits). I started to pick up mults and my awakedness
quotient was starting to peak.
Now, unfortunately the XYL broke her wrist a couple of weeks ago so guess who
had to go make supper for about an hour, right when 40 started to get
interesting. No worries, she comes first bar-nothing, but it was still one more
little distraction. Just as WafferThinMint time hit, this sound came to my
attention. It was all-pervasive and constant. Remember how the winds died down
earlier? Heh. 50-60 MPH gusts and sustained howls in the upper-40s were back
again, with my tower in not-the-best position. It was at this juncture that I
said a phrase, quite loudly, I'm told, that rhymes with "truck it," and decided
I'd leave the tower to the fates and back to the operating desk I went.
Thankfully the rest of the evening played out just fine and just after my local
midnight things were quieting down enough that I figured I'd get some shuteye
and try to make this morning's EU window.
The clock read roughly 4:00 There was This Soundâ?¢. Loud, piercing but short.
Pay it no mind I'm aslee...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
At 4:01 AM, somewhere in the control room in the primal hindbrain of my mind, a
fat little dwarf in a security outfit was paging through a Penthouse, smoking a
cigar with his feet up on the table and watching the security monitors of my
brain with his peripheral vision. There was This Soundâ?¢ again. A full
decade's allotment of adrenaline was dumped into my bloodstream all at once. My
metabolism went from "restful sleep mode" to "HOLY $#!+! WE'RE ALL GOING TO
DIE!!!! mode" in a nanosecond. My heart went from twenty something beats per
minute to about 240 or faster. *
It seems batteries in the Carbon Monoxide alarm decided that 4:00AM on a
contest weekend, with their installer in a contest-induced coma, would be the
perfect time to die in the Most Dramatic Way Possible. Of course, it took more
than a couple of minutes for me to ascertain precisely where the racket was
coming from (I originally considered it to be the alarm system panel, which has
done a similar deed in the past). Once the crisis was averted I tried to calm
down enough to get a few more eyes of shut-hour.
When I regained consciousness it was about 8:30am and I missed the second EU
window. Captain Waste Product was promoted to Major Waste Product and was
bucking for full-bird Colonel. I seriously thought this was Strike Three, but
by some wonderfully-sick reason, it wasn't. I had a solid shot on 20, then 15,
at which time I realized that bacon wasn't going to cook itself, and I needed a
half-hour break to fend off starvation. After that, the day took a turn for the
better and the rates to EU on 15 and 20 really picked up steam. Now I'm
strictly S&P but I was still having 100-130 hours without really pushing it.
The winds had died down overnight and luckily everything survived. All the gear
played perfectly, N1MM didn't melt down in crisis mode as has happened in the
past and in general the world didn't end. I even broke 1000 Qs by a decent
margin and was pickin' off mults like oranges all day long.
And somewhere between my front lawn and the driveway, under the support ropes
for my 160 inverted-L, you'll find the sad, crushed remains of what was once a
perfectly-good Kidde CO alarm.
See all y'all in a couple of weeks for Phone!
73
Peter, W2IRT
* I can't take credit for this wonderful description; this was shamelessly
copied from a very funny 2003 story involving an inflatable blimp. Go laugh
yourself silly at http://www.roadandtravel.com/adventuretravel/blimp.htm
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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