ARRL DX Contest, CW
Call: N5DX
Operator(s): N5DX
Station: N2QV
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: NY
Operating Time (hrs): 45.5
Radios: SO2R
Remote Operation
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 189 61
80: 485 76
40: 1400 102
20: 1552 100
15: 686 91
10: 21 16
-------------------
Total: 4333 446 Total Score = 5,797,554
Club:
Comments:
That was fun!
I operated remotely from the comforts of Arkansas using the N2QV station
located in New York. Internet connection and audio were rock solid for the
entire 48 hours. It's always a welcomed adventure traveling to New York and
operating on site, but being able to pilot a world class east coast station
from my home in W5 land is just priceless. Little things like the dog bounding
into the shack at 3:00 in the morning to play tug or having food delivered by my
smiling wife really make this feel like it is to good to be true.
A nightmare scenario came to fruition just two hours into the contest when the
amplifier quit working. I called Scott, WU2X, and told him that I could either
start the contest over with a new call sign and operate low power or just quit.
Scott had a third option. Without hesitation he told me to continue operating
low power while he traveled two hours to the station to swap out the bad amp.
My gut feeling was this sucks and the contest is over. It's easy to have a
similar feeling after having one bad hole early in a round of golf. Letting
that one bad hole affect your mental state can turn a bad hole into a bad
round. I pounded away on 40 and 80 meters running high in the band while
working the second radio. Conditions were in truly great shape on 160 with
many one call EU contacts going into the log while running just 100 watts.
At 0400z the new amp was hooked up and ready to be tested. The right radio
looked good, but the left radio just wouldn't key the amplifier. For those of
you keeping score. Amp 1 failure was a snap hook out of bounds off the tee on
number two. WU2X offering to replace the busted amp was a hole out on number
three from 100 yards for an eagle. Radio one not keying the new amplifier was
a lost ball off the tee and then a three putt on number four for a quadruple
bogey.
The log shows a gap from 0415z-0544z during the amp replacement and eventual
fixing of the radio one keying issue. An hour and a half of prime run time
lost on the low bands. To make matters worse the 40 meter tower becomes stuck
to the SE and will not turn. Shank from the fairway leading to a double bogey
on number 8. I assumed this meant no 40 meter EU run, but even with the
antenna stuck towards the Caribbean I had a slow steady stream of EU stations
call me on 40 meters. Close out the front nine with a 20 foot birdie putt.
Local, do everything handy man, super hero, Rich saves the day by turning the
40 meter tower towards Europe. Start the back nine off with a two putt birdie
on number 10. Unfortunately I can't rotate the antennas for the remainder of
the contest and the stack will have to remain fixed on Europe. Bogey on number
11. But wait, you are using a two high stack of monster beams from the east
coast. Hole in one on 12.
The high band EU runs are just awesome and they help to alleviate the pain from
night one. Ten meters is practically dead throughout the entire contest. A few
Caribbean or South America guys popped up early in the day but there were hour
long stretches when not one signal could be found on the band. I figure this
bodes poorly for my friends and family in ZF land.
20 meters starts to close early in the afternoon. When MI4I calls at 1950z it
seems like a good time to move both him and my run frequency. It's a
successful pass to 40 meters (birdie on 15) and at 3:00 pm Eastern time the 40
meter EU run begins.
End of day one: 2607 x 368 for 2.8 million points.
The low bands sound great and I'm hoping to make up for the debacle from the
first night. Some really fun stuff calls in during the 0200z hour on 40
meters: UK7, VU2, and UA9. 160 is also sounding hot with some EU stations
peaking at 10 over 9 on the meter. The rate slows significantly around 0900z.
20 meters isn't awake and since my 40 meter antennas can't rotate I have no shot
of running or working any of the Asia activity. I can hear weak JA stations and
AH2R, but they can't hear me. I force myself to take a nap from 1015z-1045z.
Conditions felt worse the second day on the high bands. Both 20 and 15 opened
later. There also seemed to be fewer zone 16 stations on 15 meters the second
day. It felt like I lingered to long 20 meters but 15 just didn't sound good.
It was exciting to finally have a couple of VU stations call me on 20 meters
during the 1300z hour. HZ and KL7 also called for new mults during this time.
Like all 48 hour events, my ability to copy call signs accurately is
significantly degraded during sleep deprived states. I'm not sure how to
improve this other than taking more naps during the contest or practicing Morse
Runner at 3:00 in the morning. The last four hours of a contest always bring
excitement and renewed focus. I carved up the second radio bandmap into 10 kHz
segments and filled each segment with a complete list of all the running
stations. Sort of like being my own personal skimmer. It's time consuming
but the technique seems to work. Over the course of an hour I find YV, XE, CM,
and HR5 on 15 meters for new mults. All very weak and they likely would not
have been discovered with a casual scroll of the dial. That's three birdies in
a row on holes 15, 16, and 17(this analogy is fading fast but at this point it
must be seen to its conclusion).
With 15 minutes left in the contest the mult count on 20 meters sits at 98.
It's not looking like hitting triple digits will be possible, but an easy one
falls into my lap with CE2 going into the log, number 99. Then 100 is VK4
coming in long path. Hit the par five finishing hole in two and make the eagle
putt!
A special thanks to Scott and Rich for taking time out of their weekend to fix
the problems that popped up. It's great getting texts from Tariq throughout
the contest encouraging me to keep going, including inspiring Shakespeare video
links! These guys put in all the hard work and the result is I get to do
something that I enjoy.
Thanks for all of the Qs and a special thanks to all of the gracious mults that
agreed to move.
73,
Kevin N5DX
Cabrillo Statistics (Version 10g) by K5KA & N6TV
http://bit.ly/cabstat
CALLSIGN: K5GO
CONTEST: ARRL-DX-CW
CATEGORY-OPERATOR: SINGLE-OP
CATEGORY-TRANSMITTER: ONE
OPERATORS: N5DX
==> CTY.DAT not found. Country Stats will not be produced.
-------------- Q S O R a t e S u m m a r y ---------------------
Hour 160 80 40 20 15 10 Rate Total Pct
--------------------------------------------------------------------
0000 0 7 130 7 0 0 144 144 3.3
0100 0 62 80 0 0 0 142 286 6.6
0200 21 32 20 0 0 0 73 359 8.3
0300 2 35 18 7 0 0 62 421 9.7
0400 6 5 0 0 0 0 11 432 10.0
0500 18 22 0 0 0 0 40 472 10.9
0600 33 67 0 0 0 0 100 572 13.2
0700 12 47 0 0 0 0 59 631 14.6
0800 1 4 102 0 0 0 107 738 17.0
0900 2 5 50 1 0 0 58 796 18.4
1000 2 11 5 38 0 0 56 852 19.7
1100 1 0 1 177 0 0 179 1031 23.8
1200 0 0 0 206 0 0 206 1237 28.5
1300 0 0 0 80 69 0 149 1386 32.0
1400 0 0 0 2 154 4 160 1546 35.7
1500 0 0 0 0 157 4 161 1707 39.4
1600 0 0 0 106 33 1 140 1847 42.6
1700 0 0 0 91 17 1 109 1956 45.1
1800 0 0 0 101 0 1 102 2058 47.5
1900 0 0 15 49 6 0 70 2128 49.1
2000 0 0 120 2 7 0 129 2257 52.1
2100 0 1 127 0 3 0 131 2388 55.1
2200 0 19 99 1 2 0 121 2509 57.9
2300 0 83 3 11 0 0 97 2606 60.1
0000 7 12 43 3 0 0 65 2671 61.6
0100 1 9 30 0 0 0 40 2711 62.6
0200 6 2 42 0 0 0 50 2761 63.7
0300 20 8 11 0 0 0 39 2800 64.6
0400 35 11 4 0 0 0 50 2850 65.8
0500 6 15 48 0 0 0 69 2919 67.4
0600 12 3 55 0 0 0 70 2989 69.0
0700 0 1 94 0 0 0 95 3084 71.2
0800 0 0 85 0 0 0 85 3169 73.1
0900 0 0 52 0 0 0 52 3221 74.3
1000 0 1 3 1 0 0 5 3226 74.5
1100 2 1 0 89 0 0 92 3318 76.6
1200 0 0 1 146 0 0 147 3465 80.0
1300 0 0 0 118 9 0 127 3592 82.9
1400 0 0 0 107 3 0 110 3702 85.4
1500 0 0 0 31 107 1 139 3841 88.6
1600 0 0 0 0 84 6 90 3931 90.7
1700 0 0 0 61 19 0 80 4011 92.6
1800 0 0 0 67 4 1 72 4083 94.2
1900 0 0 9 27 7 1 44 4127 95.2
2000 0 0 48 7 0 1 56 4183 96.5
2100 0 0 34 10 0 0 44 4227 97.6
2200 0 13 52 0 5 0 70 4297 99.2
2300 2 9 19 6 0 0 36 4333 100.0
------------------------------------------------------
Total 189 485 1400 1552 686 21 4333
Gross QSOs=4498 Dupes=165 Net QSOs=4333
Unique callsigns worked = 2550
The best 60 minute rate was 206/hour from 1200 to 1259
The best 30 minute rate was 218/hour from 1214 to 1243
The best 10 minute rate was 246/hour from 1217 to 1226
The best 1 minute rates were:
7 QSOs/minute 1 times.
6 QSOs/minute 1 times.
5 QSOs/minute 21 times.
4 QSOs/minute 153 times.
3 QSOs/minute 445 times.
2 QSOs/minute 716 times.
1 QSOs/minute 836 times.
There were 793 bandchanges and 389 (9.0%) probable 2nd radio QSOs.
Number of letters in callsigns
Letters # worked
-----------------
3 52
4 977
5 1913
6 1345
7 12
8 17
9 11
10 6
------------ M u l t i p l i e r S u m m a r y ------------
Mult 160 80 40 20 15 10 Total Pct
-------------------------------------------------------------
189 485 1400 1552 686 21 4333 100.0
------------------------------------------------------
Total 189 485 1400 1552 686 21 4333
Multi-band QSOs
---------------
1 bands 1507
2 bands 571
3 bands 284
4 bands 117
5 bands 62
6 bands 9
The following stations were worked on 6 bands:
8P5A PJ4X P40R TI5W VP2MVV D4C
TO7A CW5W 5J0NA
------- S i n g l e B a n d Q S O s ------
Band 160 80 40 20 15 10
----------------------------------------------
QSOs 57 136 505 637 168 4
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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