ARRL DX Contest, SSB
Call: N2GZ
Operator(s): N2GZ WE2W K1JR KB1PXO
Station: N2GZ
Class: M/2 HP
QTH: CT
Operating Time (hrs): 40
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 45 33
80: 115 60
40: 168 74
20: 607 113
15: 580 110
10: 291 83
-------------------
Total: 1806 473 Total Score = 2,562,714
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
I had a rough time getting prepared for this. The Alpha 9500 ended up failing
the weekend prior, so instead of cleaning the workshop and repairing the Europe
facing beverage, I ended up troubleshooting and repairing the amp. Backup plan
was to operate Multi-1 LP. Amp was repaired by noon on Friday (new HV feed
resistor and a protection diode on the cathode bias trace), but the shack was a
disaster. Managed to get it decently cleaned up and was on the air at 0000z...
but without a nap or European beverage.
K1JR brought his K3 so that we could have 2 stations up and running. The the
Flex-6700 was QRO with the Alpha, and the K3 was barefoot. Having the second
radio was great as it kept us occupied better than Multi-1 for Sweeps. This is
our first time doing ARRL DX as a Multi.
K1JR arrived a few hours into the contest, we got his station setup and we were
active making QSOs for a few hours. I stayed up alone through European Sunrise
gathering multipliers on the low bands, intending to take a brief nap to be up
for before our sunrise... but it wasn't meant to be. I did manage to get up
early enough to work a KH6 on 160, which put me in a good mood. Low bands were
noisy the first night.
Saturday, 10 and 15 were packed, and 10 was being wonky but allowing contacts
to be made. Sharing the tribander was somewhat problematic... where to point
it? With the bands crowded not much running was done, as we were searching and
pouncing it seemed that we never wanted the beam pointed the same direction...
will have to think about this as the antenna farm grows. The 4O3A triplexer
works great. We had zero interactions between the radios.
KB1PXO arrived late Saturday with a friend, who is unlicensed but seemed
interested and eager to learn about what we were doing.
Saturday evening I took a nap after dinner, and woke up at 11 to find that the
radios were idle... I was told there "wasn't anything interesting to
work" and that they were all going to bed. Well I knew that couldn't be
true, but I'm the only low band operator in our group, so I wandered off to
spend the night alone with the radios. Things were great! the bands were quiet
and full of plenty of interesting stations to work until around 3:00am local,
then they started getting noisy... nosier on my beverages than on my verticals,
not sure what was up with that. I started napping in between sets of contacts.
Sunday morning I had some awesome runs on 20 and 15.
Sunday afternoon KB1PXO's friend asked if she could try making a QSO, so we put
her in the hot seat and let her have a go. She caught on fast; we were all very
impressed. Hopefully we can get her some more exposure and maybe a license??
Prior to the contest I had set a goal of 2.5M points. Having never operated
this contest Multi-2, or even Multi, I had no idea if this would be easy or
difficult. I was originally going to set a goal of 2M points, but decided to
be bold and chose the higher goal. We made it! Next time I will set a goal
that includes spending more time running.
Things to improve for next time: control, or at least indication of the rotor
from both stations. I know this is possible in N1MM but haven't spent the time
to make it happen yet. And maybe some more power for the other station at the
~500W level.
I had a great contest, and it was fun to get together with some Clarkson
University (K2CC) Alumni.
Greg, N2GZ
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