ARRL DX Contest, CW
Call: K0DQ
Operator(s): K0DQ
Station: K8PO
Class: SO Unlimited HP
QTH: Maine
Operating Time (hrs): 43
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 112 56
80: 486 79
40: 1248 98
20: 1293 113
15: 1074 117
10: 942 105
-------------------
Total: 5155 568 Total Score = 8,777,304
Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club
Comments:
Great weekend at the Maine Battlecruiser (K8PO). Paul’s station engineering
and design is exceeded only by his and Jackie’s hospitality. Arrived and
departed between snowstorms and the record level white stuff was readily
apparent on the ground (not sure if it raised or lowered the take off angle).
Conditions seemed better on Sunday than Saturday, especially on 10 meters. The
flux seems to be at that point where the New England Nightmare (or at least the
Maine version) occurs, with more southern stations running Europe for several
hours before the band opens here. That was true on Saturday morning on 10 and,
especially, on 20 meters Sunday morning before our sunrise. But once open the
high bands were great. Saturday morning on 15 I able to tie my personal CW
best 60 minute total of 241 (from US), but only for a few seconds before the
pile up evaporated. Low bands - especially 160 - did not seem as good as CQWW
CW and as usual the number of DX mults was down.
Assisted
This was my second contest after turning 70 and I decided I would check into
assisted living. This was only the second attempt at a serious
Unlimited/Assisted effort and, all in all, it was an enjoyable experience. It
was nice to work a lot of DX I would have likely missed otherwise and I
particularly appreciated not having to continuously type calls to check for
dupes, especially on the second radio. While assisted clearly does not require
the same skill set as unassisted (e.g. tuning the big knob and knowing
propagation in detail), I found it less stressful overall. Took 5 hours off
and didn’t feel guilty.
And it does require a few new skills, most of which involve computer setup
(duh!). I had a brief moment of panic at 2355Z Friday when I restarted the
computer and couldn’t connect to the only cluster I know how to use (VE7CC).
Turned out it was a local network issue. Not having a home station, I also
learned a few lessons on the fly such as how NOT to click on a spot (still not
sure how I ended up calling CQ on 21400 once).
A special well done to the DX ops, notably the Europeans who are the bread and
butter for us. They were uniformly professional and skilled in getting in and
out of pileups without excess calling or repetition. Also pleased to work a
large number of QRP stations.
All in all, a fun contest. Thanks for the Q’s.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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