ARRL 160-Meter Contest
Call: K5WA
Operator(s): K5WA
Station: K5WA
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: STX
Operating Time (hrs): 17
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 1080 Sections = 81 Countries = 23 Total Score = 244,192
Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club
Comments:
The first night was interesting because conditions were fairly good/quiet here
and EU stations would pop in on a semi-regular basis. There were a fair amount
of JAs (25) that I worked so that was fun but no VK/ZL here. I tried to S&P
for mults every hour between running stations but couldn't get much
accomplished. The second night, it was extremely boring because, while the EU
big guns were there steady (but lightly), the second tier of EU stations was
gone for me. It was pretty humbling to sit and listen to Jeff, VY2ZM, sitting
there running EU like they were in his backyard. I've actually operated from
VY2TT and EU IS in their backyard up there. ;-)
It seemed as if the DX participation was down or maybe it was just conditions
here. There also seemed to be a bigger crop of folks that just don't know
code. I don't mean fumbling with an exchange or missing a letter due to QSB
but flat can't copy or send code at any speed. I slowed down to 13-15 wpm
several times and never was able to get them to understand CALL?, CL? or SEC?.
I guess these are guys trying to improve their skills but I sure hope they find
an Elmer quick.
I finally got my 2 element elevated radial array working after a few months of
having a broken Comtek phasing box. DX Engineering did a great rush job of
fixing it after I sent it to them late in November. This was really a shake
out effort of the array and beverages before CQWW 160. Both played like they
were supposed to. I had to be careful that I was on the right beverage or I
just didn't hear the weak guys. I'd love to know what some of the really weak
guys were running for antennas (coat hanger in the closet I'll bet). I finally
got into the rhythm on each contact of having all 4 beverages ON and then
turning OFF the ones that didn't help the signal. It was nice for the ears too
because with all 4 beverages ON, it was quieter until I would narrow down to one
beverage; the noise and signal came up to normal as I did. I'm going to have to
program that sequence into my control system so that isn't a manual operation.
The second thing I learned was that ice lowers my array's tuning by 25 KHz. I
didn't realize that it was freezing outside and that a fine mist had fallen for
a while so when I looked at my "dump" wattage from the array, it had
gone up at 1829 where it had been practically zero at the start of the contest.
I actually thought the radials had fallen so I went outside with a flashlight
and saw the ice on the elements and radials. It makes sense but I had to see
it to believe it when it happened.
Also, since it was so slow the second night, I decided to upgrade my contest
computer from Win 8 to Win 8.1. I had forgotten this was a 2 hour operation so
I was flat off the air for 2 hours the second night right during EU sunrise. Oh
well, DISH TV was showing the 007 movie SkyFall so I enjoyed that while the
computer was upgrading. Ooooops! ;-)
It is always fun to play on 160 and you never know what you are going to get.
I heard locals AB5K and NX5M going to town so I'm sure they both post HUGE
scores from their fine stations. Terry is a machine up there in NTX! I'll bet
he has all his beverages running now after I saw their progress in early
November.
Thanks for the Qs!
Bob K5WA
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