ARRL DX Contest, CW
Call: WC1M
Operator(s): WC1M
Station: WC1M
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: NH
Operating Time (hrs): 40
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 66 43
80: 374 62
40: 1139 76
20: 1025 94
15: 909 90
10: 367 61
-------------------
Total: 3880 426 Total Score = 4,958,640
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
Congrats to whoever won USA SOAB HP, most likely K0DQ at the WW1WW battleship (I
get my chance to use the big guns with a small group in the SSB portion in a few
weeks.) I heard K3CR this weekend, so Iâ??m sure Alex is in the top group as
well. Otherwise, a bunch of the usual W1 suspects were doing multis or
Unlimited this weekend. Iâ??m wondering if Unlimited is the new normal. Am I
out of fashion already?
The conditions made this contest really fun, but it wasnâ??t my best
performance. I havenâ??t done a full 48-hour CW contest since 2011 CQ WW CW,
and found that being out of practice means something more than my CW being a
little rusty (which wasnâ??t a problem after the first 10 minutes or so.) What
it really means, at least for me, is that my mind and body werenâ??t ready for
the stress, grind and lack of sleep. I did OK the first night and first
morning, but after that I struggled very hard to stay in front of the radio. My
best weapon was shorter naps â?" 20 or 45 minutes, an hour at most. But I ended
up taking too many of them, and barely got over the 40 hour mark. Probably 2-3
hours were during the lowest activity, but the rest of my break hours left a
lot of QSOs and mults on the table. Bottom line for me is that I have to do
more contesting to keep in shape! Otherwise, I canâ??t take advantage of the
rate when conditions are good. I forgot about that during the bottom of the
cycle!
As I said, conditions were quite good, actually spectacular at times, though
there were a few lulls here and there. I can usually judge propagation by the
percentage of Russians answering my calls, and especially the Asiatic Russians
coming over the pole. No shortage of either. I think K3ZO has a point about
fairy dust from that meteor passing through the ionosphereâ?¦
As others have noted, the low bands were awesome. I canâ??t recall a time on
160 when Iâ??ve gotten through on the first call almost every time, even
through pileups. I was able to run for a short time, too, which I donâ??t think
Iâ??ve ever done on 160. 80 was similarly good, enough to run a few hundred
stations. Glad I fixed my 80/160 trapped vee and the NE/SW dual beverage! As
usual, 40 was my best band all weekend. It got a little noisy toward the end
Sunday, but otherwise it was great. With flux over 100 and low geomagnetic
indices, 20 and 15 were quite strong. The world was wide open on both bands,
and I had very good JA runs on both bands: early evening the first day on 15
and late afternoon the second day on 20. I didnâ??t expects 10 to open to
Europe for any length of time, so I prepared to S&P for south/west mults and
the occasional loud Atlantic station. I picked off about 25 mults the first
day, mostly south and east. Luckily, I spotted a surge in 10m activity on the
second radio band scope Sunday morning at about 1420z while running 15 on the
other radio. I jumped to 10 and I was able to run Europe with rates well over
100/hr for about three hours. This was great because it added almost 40 mults
to the total on 10. The pileups werenâ??t like the epic ones you get with flux
over 150, but they were plenty good enough for Sunday afternoon after no runs
the day before.
I should mention that while 20 was excellent on Saturday morning, it opened
with a huge bang on Sunday morning. Maybe my memory is short, but I canâ??t
recall ever running bigger, louder pileups on CW. Holy cow. I really felt like
â??the DXâ??. If could have made the pileup go split I would have! I worked the
masses as best I could, but sometimes it was just a solid wall of sound and I
had to wait for smart ops to throw in well-timed calls. Wow. Unfortunately,
when the pileups get too big, my rate suffers. I donâ??t know how those DX ops
do it. Really good ears?
Speaking of pileups, I experimented with running higher in the band in this
contest, especially the first day. I have a bad habit from operating at multis
of trying to squeeze into the first 10 KHz of the band. While my radioâ??s
filters are up to the task, I think itâ??s getting harder and harder for
stations to find me between the big guns in the USA and Europe. I was afraid
that the pileups would be smaller higher in the band, but that wasnâ??t the
case.
I had hoped to break 4000 Qs and put up a score of at least 5 million points,
but I fell just short of those marks. As I said, too many breaks. Last time I
did a full 48 in this contest, in 2010, my mults were very low. So I hit the
second radio very hard this time and focused a lot more on making sure that I
swept every band as often as I could. That said, I again found it very hard to
use the second radio when the rate was over 150/hr, and at the same time
couldnâ??t tear myself away from the high rate to do dedicated S&P. Still
working on this SO2R dilemma.
For me, the highlight of this contest was running JAs on 15 Saturday evening.
Itâ??s been quite a few years since I was able to get any appreciable rate to
JA. Lowest moments were all about fatigue. No frequency fights to speak of,
though I think at one point the op at a New England multi accidentally hit the
split button and ended up transmitting on top of me â?" and didnâ??t seem to
hear me when I complained. It happens.
I guess I can live with the cut numbers, but a couple of things callers do
still bother me:
1. When you send your call the first time in a pileup, send it only once. If
you donâ??t hear me respond within a few seconds, then send it again when the
frequency clears. But for heaven sake donâ??t send your call multiple times
back-to-back unless itâ??s obvious that Iâ??m having trouble copying you.
Normally, as soon as I get your call on the first transmission, Iâ??m going to
transmit. If you immediately send your call again, youâ??ll miss all or part of
my transmission, you wonâ??t respond, and Iâ??ll have to send your call and
report again. This is a waste of time for both of is.
2. When I ask for a fill, just send it once. Donâ??t repeat the information
unless I ask. If I ask for the fill again, then all bets are off -- go ahead
and send it as many times as you think necessary. But just send it once the
first time. Usually I need a fill because QRM, QSB or static has wiped out part
of a letter. I probably get your fill on the first try about 90% of the time.
Maybe more. So, if you repeat the fill, youâ??re just wasting time to no avail.
3. You donâ??t need to send anything after the exchange. I appreciate the TU,
but itâ??s unnecessary and takes time. Often Iâ??m so anxious to move on that I
transmit on top of your TU anyway, and then you miss my TU. Definitely donâ??t
send 73 or any other pleasantries. Itâ??s a contest, not a social event.
Weâ??re both trying to work as many stations as we can, so time is of the
essence.
4. Finally, *please* donâ??t resend your call after I send it to you correctly.
In other words, donâ??t do this:
Me: CQ test WC1M WC1M
You: G3xxx
Me: G3xxx 599 NH
You G3xxx 599 400
When you repeat the call, it makes me think that I must have copied it
incorrectly the first time, and youâ??re trying to correct me. If itâ??s noisy,
and I donâ??t quite copy the resend, Iâ??m going to have to ask you for a fill.
All this is avoided if you simply send the exchange. If I messed up your call,
by all means send a correction. Otherwise, donâ??t send your call again.
Had a couple of equipment glitches, but they had little or no impact:
Shortly after the contest began, my Acom 2000A faulted when I tried to
transmit. I reset the amp and turned the exciter power way down, then gradually
raised it. Normally it takes between 50W and 70W to drive the amp to full power,
but it only took 20W to get a full gallon. Iâ??ve seen many instances where the
rig didnâ??t have enough power to drive the amp, but none where it actually
took less power â?" a lot less power! Good thing the amp has protection
circuits â?" I probably could have driven the tubes to the point of explosion.
I ended up just turning down the power and using the amp for the rest of the
contest, with no apparent ill effects (the amp is on the radio I mostly use for
S&P, so it got light duty.) Iâ??m pretty sure thereâ??s a blown component in the
bias supply, which will make for a fun troubleshooting session later this week.
Good thing it wasnâ??t an SSB contest!
The other problem was a bump in SWR on two of the elements of my 40m 4-square
â?" not through the roof, but enough to trip the amps. Itâ??s probably bad
phasing lines to those elements or bad relay contacts in the switch box. The
antenna has been up for 15 years, so itâ??s not surprising that something like
this would happen sooner or later. Canâ??t do much about it now, because
everything is under a layer of snow. Luckily, I mostly use the 4-square for
diversity reception with my 2-el beam at 115â?? (a fabulous combination). It
worked for that, though I suspect the SWR problem has affected the pattern a
little. I donâ??t normally transmit with the 4-square, but every now and then
itâ??s handy for working a Caribbean or South American station. Didnâ??t seem
to be a problem working them off the back of the beam in this contest.
Great fun, but I need more practice. See you next time.
QSO/DX by hour and band
Hour 160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total Cumm Off
D1-0000Z --+-- --+-- 103/27 4/4 --+-- --+-- 107/31 107/31
D1-0100Z - - 86/10 18/14 - - 104/24 211/55
D1-0200Z 4/4 32/23 46/2 3/1 - - 85/30 296/85
D1-0300Z 29/16 38/6 - - - - 67/22 363/107
D1-0400Z - 20/4 53/4 - - - 73/8 436/115
D1-0500Z - 18/3 86/3 - - - 104/6 540/121
D1-0600Z 9/8 5/1 55/2 - - - 69/11 609/132
D1-0700Z - 34/8 34/4 - - - 68/12 677/144
D1-0800Z 1/0 --+-- 94/4 --+-- --+-- --+-- 95/4 772/148
D1-0900Z 4/4 4/3 48/3 - - - 56/10 828/158 29
D1-1000Z - - - - - - 0/0 828/158 60
D1-1100Z - - - 156/32 - - 156/32 984/190 7
D1-1200Z - - - - 166/34 - 166/34 1150/224
D1-1300Z - - - - 147/10 6/5 153/15 1303/239
D1-1400Z - - - - 145/3 1/1 146/4 1449/243
D1-1500Z - - - 10/3 58/1 9/8 77/12 1526/255
D1-1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- 8/3 66/1 3/3 77/7 1603/262
D1-1700Z - - - - - 4/4 4/4 1607/266 52
D1-1800Z - - - 57/2 - - 57/2 1664/268 34
D1-1900Z - - - 151/9 - 4/4 155/13 1819/281
D1-2000Z - - - 99/4 7/7 2/2 108/13 1927/294
D1-2100Z - - 70/1 - 18/15 - 88/16 2015/310
D1-2200Z - - 113/3 7/5 - - 120/8 2135/318
D1-2300Z - - 61/0 4/4 3/1 - 68/5 2203/323
D2-0000Z --+-- --+-- --+-- 5/4 49/0 --+-- 54/4 2257/327
D2-0100Z - 6/3 21/8 - - - 27/11 2284/338
D2-0200Z - 28/2 36/2 - - - 64/4 2348/342
D2-0300Z 14/8 34/2 1/0 - - - 49/10 2397/352 3
D2-0400Z - 7/0 - - - - 7/0 2404/352 60
D2-0500Z - 91/1 4/1 - - - 95/2 2499/354
D2-0600Z 2/2 46/1 13/0 - - - 61/3 2560/357
D2-0700Z - 11/5 93/0 - - - 104/5 2664/362
D2-0800Z 2/1 --+-- 38/0 --+-- --+-- --+-- 40/1 2704/363 23
D2-0900Z - - - - - - 0/0 2704/363 60
D2-1000Z - - - - - - 0/0 2704/363 60
D2-1100Z - - - 158/1 - - 158/1 2862/364 1
D2-1200Z - - - 35/1 108/4 - 143/5 3005/369
D2-1300Z - - - 14/0 60/2 26/13 100/15 3105/384
D2-1400Z - - - - 28/2 95/12 123/14 3228/398
D2-1500Z - - - - - 107/5 107/5 3335/403
D2-1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 2/2 106/2 108/4 3443/407
D2-1700Z - - - - - 1/0 1/0 3444/407 59
D2-1800Z - - - 75/0 12/1 2/1 89/2 3533/409 12
D2-1900Z - - - 85/3 18/1 1/1 104/5 3637/414
D2-2000Z - - - 46/1 15/6 - 61/7 3698/421
D2-2100Z - - 68/0 14/0 - - 82/0 3780/421
D2-2200Z 1/0 - 7/1 55/3 - - 63/4 3843/425
D2-2300Z - - 9/1 21/0 7/0 - 37/1 3880/426
Total: 66/43 374/62 1139/76 1025/94 909/90 367/61
160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total %
EU 49 342 1066 870 775 338 3440 88.7
AS 0 2 39 97 78 1 217 5.6
AF 2 5 12 8 7 7 41 1.1
SA 5 4 6 20 26 9 70 1.8
NA 10 18 10 19 19 10 86 2.2
OC 0 3 6 11 3 1 24 0.6
160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total
3V 1 1 1 3
4O 1 1
4X 4 1 3 1 9
5B 1 1 1 1 4
6W 1 1 1 1 1 5
6Y 1 1 1 1 4
8P 1 1
9A 2 3 18 13 7 8 51
9H 1 2 2 1 6
A6 1 1
C6 1 1 1 1 4
CE 3 1 1 5
CM 1 2 3
CN 1 1 2
CT 1 1 1 3
CT3 1 1 2 1 1 6
CU 1 1 1 1 1 3 8
CX 1 1 1 3
D2 1 1
DL 6 57 172 151 109 87 582
E7 2 9 5 3 3 22
EA 1 10 26 28 14 10 89
EA6 1 1 1 3
EA8 3 4 3 2 3 15
EA9 1 1
EI 2 2 4 3 2 13
ER 1 1 1 3
ES 4 4 4 12
ET 1 1
EU 6 16 8 10 40
EY 1 1
F 2 16 35 32 19 18 122
FG 1 1
FM 1 1 1 3
FY 1 1
G 5 17 57 51 31 15 176
GD 1 4 1 1 1 8
GI 1 1 2 1 1 6
GJ 1 1 1 1 4
GM 1 1 7 11 5 1 26
GU 1 1 1 3
GW 2 6 4 3 1 16
HA 2 14 36 37 30 14 133
HB 1 5 12 9 6 8 41
HC 1 2 3
HI 1 2 2 1 6
HK 1 1 2 1 1 1 7
HL 1 1
HR 1 1
HS 3 3
HZ 1 1
I 1 14 79 67 36 26 223
IS 1 1 2 4
J3 1 1 2
J8 1 1 1 3
JA 11 55 55 121
JT 1 1
KH6 2 4 4 2 12
KL 2 3 5
KP2 2 3 1 2 1 9
KP4 1 2 1 2 6
LA 1 5 10 10 10 3 39
LU 1 3 2 6
LX 1 2 2 3 8
LY 1 7 11 10 11 1 41
LZ 1 8 24 19 21 10 83
OA 2 1 1 4
OE 1 1 5 4 7 1 19
OH 1 7 17 16 13 54
OK 4 20 69 44 56 26 219
OM 8 20 16 15 9 68
ON 4 15 14 8 8 49
OZ 5 14 11 8 8 46
P4 2 1 2 3 4 1 13
PA 1 7 42 43 33 17 143
PJ2 1 1 1 1 1 5
PJ4 1 1 1 1 1 5
PY 1 4 9 1 15
R1FJ 1 1 1 3
S5 1 12 32 24 13 10 92
SM 2 20 35 23 31 9 120
SP 2 15 43 31 33 14 138
SV 1 1 5 3 2 12
SV9 1 1 2
TA 3 1 4
TF 2 4 1 7
TI 1 1 1 1 1 1 6
UA 3 21 82 74 105 2 287
UA2 2 2 4
UA9 17 30 11 58
UK 1 1
UN 3 5 2 10
UR 2 28 79 38 76 3 226
V3 1 1 1 1 2 6
V5 1 1
VK 4 4
VP2E 1 1 1 1 4
VP2M 1 1 1 1 1 1 6
VP5 1 1 1 3
VP9 1 1 2
VU 1 1
XE 1 2 1 1 1 1 7
YB 1 1
YL 1 7 11 6 9 34
YO 5 24 20 22 6 77
YU 1 6 23 18 9 7 64
YV 1 2 3
Z3 1 4 1 1 1 8
ZB 1 1 2
ZC4 1 1
ZF 1 1 1 1 4
ZL 1 2 2 1 1 7
ZS 1 3 1 1 6
Antennas:
160M - trapped vee @90'
80M - delta loop @75, trapped vee @90'
40M - Cal-Av 2D-40A @110', 4-square
20M - 4/4/4 SteppIRs @96'/64'/34' on TICs, C3E @50', 4-el @72'
15M - 4/4/4 SteppIRs @96'/64'/34' on TICs, C3E @50', 5-el @50'
10M - 4/4/4 SteppIRs @96'/64'/34' on TICs, C3E @50'. 6-el @115'
Tower#1: Force 12 EF-610, Cal-AV 2D-40A, 4-el SteppIRs, 160/80 trapped vee
770-MDP: Force-12 EF-420
AB-577 #1: Force-12 EF-515
AB-577 #2: Force-12 C3E
Delta loop hung from a tree
dual 580' beverage aimed 20/220 degrees
Equipment:
Elecraft K3 + Alpha 87A, Elecraft K3 + LP-PAN + Acom 2000A, Writelog,
LP-BRIDGE, PowerSDR-IF, YCCC SO2R Box, homebrew Windows antenna
switching/tuning software ("AntennaMaster"), iPad running iDisplay for
touch-screen "button box", K1XM MOAS II USB Switch, TopTen and KK1L SO2R
switches, Green Heron and Hy-Gain rotor controllers, microHam Stack Switch and
StackMax
73, Dick WC1M
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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