CQWW WPX Contest, CW
Call: KM3T
Operator(s): K0DQ
Station: KC1XX
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: NH
Operating Time (hrs): 35.5
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160: 0
80: 124
40: 749
20: 1432
15: 732
10: 44
------------
Total: 3081 Prefixes = 1015 Total Score = 8,784,825
Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club
Comments:
KM3T (K0DQ @ KC1XX) -- A great weekend at a great station!
When Woody put the WW1WW Battleship in the shipyard for overhaul, Matt, KC1XX,
kindly invited me to operate WPX CW from the nuclear powered Aircraft Carrier,
U.S.S. HURRICANE HILL a.k.a. superstation KC1XX (check out the address in
QRZ.com). I am especially grateful to Matt, Christine and their wonderful
family for their warm and gracious hospitality
The station is still set up for multi-multi operation but â?" with great
assistance from KM3T and K1GQ - we figured out a way to turn it into a
temporary SO2R setup by switching two IC-7700s to each of the existing
amp/bandpass filter setups through KM3Tâ??s Six-Pak. It worked better than
expected with the only major challenge being the need to sprint across the room
to rotate and â?" especially â?" select antennas and elevation
phasing. Who says ham radio is a sedentary hobby?
With solar flux predicted as high as 160 in proceeding weeks it looked like a
great opportunity to go after the U.S. record, set by KC3R last year. Alas, as
has been the case in the majority of contests over the past three years, there
were major disturbances over most of the weekend with a solar flux around 130.
In the end, I found my claimed score sandwiched between two guys with â??LZâ??
in their callsigns â?" Krassy, K1LZ, and Alex, LZ4AX, at KC3R. Looks like
another one for the log checkers finally to adjudicate but based on early
returns, the lead is clearly in Krassyâ??s court. Randy, K5ZD, was scarily
ahead early on but after I asked after his dog he apparently remembered it was
time to walk him and got distracted by a soccer match on TV :-) Good to see
Kevin on from W5WMUâ??s Cajun Station out in Lubec, Maine, the furthest east
CONUS competitor (which weâ??ll drive by next week).
As usual, he contest was replete with rewards and problems. The station is
â?" in a word - awesome. There no shortage of aluminum in the air on top
of Hurricane Hill and the station is a marvel to operate. The engineering
reflects Mattâ??s commitment to excellence with quality balanced with
ruggedness and redundancy, all amply reflected in the wall full of plaques
representing a long heritage of contest successes. The hardware performed
perfectly with no glitches.
Operationally, there were a few spurts of good runs and a short but nicely
quiet 80 meter opening Saturday night. A noticeably shorter call compared to
WW1WW and rarer than K0DQ (thanks, Dave) was a plus over previous years.
Overall, however, the poor conditions turned the contest into a long slog with
accompanying uncertainty as to when to take off time. That was further
aggravated by three computer failures (my laptops). The Blue Screens of Death
(BSDs) all occurred in the midst of heavy runs and caused a cumulative loss of
30 minutes of prime run time. I also mismanaged my time off so that I entered
day two with only 41 minutes off time remaining which meant operating until 2319
Sunday or losing 19 minutes by taking an hour off during poorer conditions
during the day. That may have been crucial as the final three hours seemed to
peak in propagation as the CME wore off. I had been about 70 QSOs ahead of
Krassy with 9 hours to go but he had pulled to within 20 QSOs by the end. The
difference in claimed score is about 30 high band Europeans! In the end
conditions dominated and the final result was a QSO total down about 500 from
last year.
A recent thread on the contest reflector was how to design a station to
transition easily between multi-op and SO2R and this effort was illustrative of
the challenges. Because of the inability to control antennas at the operating
position, I tended to set up the second (non-run) radio antennas in
â??multiplier modeâ?? splitting power in multiple directions (Matt calls it the
â??vertical modeâ?? for itâ??s omni-directionality). Most of the time I just
left it there when transitioning to run on that band, rather than putting all
the horsepower on the target area (generally Europe). I finally put a set of
headphones on a long cord so I could scoot to the antenna switching position
with a wireless keyboard and make a few contacts (without a monitor to see what
I was typing!) while trying the different elevation modes on the stacks. That
setup worked reasonably well for WPX which is largely a rate contest but would
have been more problematic for CQ or ARRL DX with their geographic and
multi-band multiplier regimen. That issue is one of the challenges Matt is
figuring out as he transitions the station to a new focus on M/2 or M/S. In
any event, it worked well enough to be competitive and was certainly a lot of
fun.
Special thanks to Anika, Mattâ??s seventh grade daughter, who kept the flag
bridge in coffee and cooked breakfast and to Dave, KM3T, Bill, K1GQ, and Z-Bob,
WA1Z for unselfishly giving of their time and toil to help with the preparation
and setup.
As I write this Iâ??m flying home on the U.S. Memorial Day holiday. I always
ask if the pilots there are any Navy pilots in the cockpit (which usually
generates some high fives or trash talk, depending on the answer). Todayâ??s
Southwest co-pilot is a Navy F-18 Super Hornet vet, a happy circumstance that
reminds me to thank all of you who serve or have served in protecting our
freedoms.
God bless
Scott, K0DQ (â??Gorillaâ??)
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