ARRL 160-Meter Contest
Call: WE9V
Operator(s): WE9V
Station: WE9V
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: WI
Operating Time (hrs): 26
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 1168 Sections = 81 Countries = 15 Total Score = 229,728
Club: Society of Midwest Contesters
Comments:
Due to the high noise at my home, I operated Field Day style from my mother's
house in central WI. I have an inverted L, which is about 40' vertical, maybe
another 20' diagonal, and then the rest is downward sloping. I have one
two-wire beverage that runs through the woods (900' NE/SW) but it suffers from
breakage every year from even small branches falling, as it's made from 16 ga
speaker wire. After repairing about 8 breaks, it only appeared to work in the
NE direction, and not at all in the SW. Oh well.
As I was operating with a corporate laptop, and a new one at that, I had to
install Writelog and other helper apps the day before. Started the contest
only to find I had a lot of CW stuttering (USB cable to K3, Win7). This was
unacceptable, so took some time off already to install MicroHAM driver and hook
up the MicroHAM CW Keyer that I luckily brought along as a backup. Then the
driver locked up during install, requiring a reboot. Finally got it installed
and fumbled with the configuration (haven't used it in years). Once I was
ready to go, I got a BSOD. ARGH!!! Rebooted and it was the last of the
serious computer issues for the rest of the contest.
That ~30 minute off time put me behind the pace I wanted to match/beat (my 2015
SOLP Unlimited effort from this same location). After a few hours, about 500 Qs
in the log, I was excited that I was able to recover the loss. But at that
point, it went downhill, for no apparent reason. I started falling further and
further behind. Oh well. I finished the first night with 826 QSOs and 87 total
mults, which was 1 mult behind my total score in 2015. Not too bad other than
being down nearly 100 QSOs. Best clock hour was only 107, then 91, 88, 84, 83.
Excluding the first 6 hours of the contest, the average rate was 33/hr, or only
29 for the 2nd day. Just like Sweepstakes....operate the first few hours and
stop the contest! LOL. I had 50% of my total QSOs in just over 7 hours, and I
had 70% of my QSOs in the first night. 826 first night, another 342 the second
night.
I took a nap both evenings, around 2-3am local (8-9z) until about 1030z,
thinking that there'd be some casual East Coasters waking up at 5:30am their
time. Logic was sound, but rate wasn't. Oh well.
After awaking the 2nd night shortly after 10z, the rate was pretty abysmal at
14/hour. There was a winter storm warning, and it was worsening, claiming
3" of snow where I was, and 3-5" at home. The longer I waited, the
worse it was going to get. So, after the awesome 14 Qs in the 11z hour, I
decided to go back to bed, get another hour nap, then wake up at sunrise and
tear down the station and head home before it got too bad. Overall, 3-5"
isn't bad, but I hate driving in it, especially when they haven't plowed yet.
Not too many cars in the ditch on the drive home, but a few, including a
section of the interstate closed, and a minivan laying on it's roof closer to
home.
The noise at this location is wonderful...listening during the day on the TX
antenna, you wonder if the antenna is even hooked up, and once you know it is,
you wonder if you need a pre-amp on the TX antenna! At home, it's around S6-7
on a good day, and over S9 on bad days. Even the tiny beverages and K9AY loops
are S4+ on good days. The downside to hearing so well and running low power is
that there always seems to be DX that doesn't hear you and they think your CQ
frequency is a nice clear spot for them to CQ. I can't blame them, but it's
frustrating. Then there's the US/VE stations who you are certain can hear you,
yet they like your frequency anyway.
TM6M was loud during all mutual darkness times, and he was consistently heard.
Yet, every time I tried to call him, both nights, he could never hear me. Not
even a '?'. F6GOX called me on the 2nd night for the mult, so I thought I'd
try TM6M again, but he still didn't hear me. I finally got his attention an
hour later, about 30 minutes after his sunrise.
WL7E and VO1MP were my last two sections I worked, missing SJV and KP4. I
heard W6SX both Friday night and again Saturday morning, but he just CQed in my
face. Never heard KP4, but did manage 4 KP2s. Only 19 (5) point QSOs were made
(9 EU, 4 SA), with only about 6 of them calling me.
Thanks for all the QSOs!
Chad WE9V
http://www.we9v.com
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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