NA Sprint CW Contest - September
Call: W4EF
Operator(s): W4EF
Station: W4EF
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 3:32
Summary:
Band QSOs Op Time
---------------------
80: 13 00:14
40: 97 01:35
20: 117 01:43
---------------------
Total: 227 Mults = 40 Total Score = 9,080
Club: Southern California Contest Club
Team: SCCC #1
Comments:
Rig: Omni 6+ & Drake L-7
Antennas:
20M Spiderbeam @45'
Inverted-V @40'
40M Inverted-V @40'
1/4 Wave Vertical
80M Inverted-V @40'
1/4 Wave Vertical
Not one of my better efforts. Bad weather didn't help matters. I drove through
rain on the way from LA to the high desert. It wasn't raining when I got to the
Antelope Valley, but that didn't last for long. Thunderstorm static on 20 meters
wasn't too bad at the start, but I started getting severe rain static on the
Spiderbeam maybe 15 or 20 minutes into the contest. It wasn't present on the
inverted-v, so I ended up transmitting on the Spiderbeam and listening on the
inverted-v by manually switching with a B&W rotary coax switch. This worked
okay, but threw off my rhythm a bit.
Thunderstorm static on 40 meters was really bad and by then then lightning was
getting too close for comfort. A sensible person would have pulled the plug at
that point, but I somehow convinced myself that I didn't feel like being
sensible so I pressed on. By that time I was starting to really feel bad
physically. Between the physical discomfort and the static crashes I was asking
for an embarassing number of repeats. When I hit 80 it was more of the same only
worse. After I had to ask N0AX to repeat his number 3 or 4 times, I decided that
nobody was being served by my continued participation, least of all me, so I
shut off the rig and went straight to bed with about 30 minutes left to go.
The good news is that the Spiderbeam (rain static nonwithstanding) seemed to be
a big improvement over the 20M inverted-V. Hopefully things will go better in
February. See you all then.
73, Mike W4EF...........
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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