ARRL 160-Meter Contest
Call: W5MX
Operator(s): W5MX K4FT
Station: W5MX
Class: M/S HP
QTH: KY
Operating Time (hrs): 28
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 1398 Sections = 80 Countries = 45 Total Score = 409,750
Club: Kentucky Contest Group
Comments:
Just got back late Thursday night from the now 5th annual trip to Sicily for
vacation and cqww cw at ii9p. The xyl and I have made some fantastic friends
over there, top notch people!
Got up around 9am local time Friday with serious jet lag, but was motivated by
excitement for one of my favorite contests of the year. Went down to the
property to fix beverages that I had not done maintenance on since ARRL DX
contests last year. Trees over them to be cleared, one knocked down by accident
by a neighbor, and 3 of the 6 had binocular core transformers blown apart from
lightening strikes. John K4FT and my son helped clear the wires. I rewound the
transformers and had everything hooked up by 5 minutes to contest time. Still
using generator power (an 8.5kw unit) to power everything in the cabin. Wood
stove heat. Some day I will get power ran up there!
Things started off great, band opened to EU early. Several in the log before
dark and conditions seemed great. However, it was downhill from there. As others
mentioned, the storm QRN was tremendous from around 01:00z through most of the
night. Even though they were to the west, they were close enough to cause s4-s9
sustained static crashes all night. Sat night wasn't much better as the slow
moving storms moved directly overhead causing some shut down and disconnect
time. The last 5 160 contests have had storm issues at my place, but never both
nights like this. So as others have stated, we sincerly apologize for all the
repeats and missed q's. We seriously thought about pulling the plug as to not
look like so bad on rx. My location has a literal 0 noise level normally,
anything above that is atmospheric. It was very frustrating to hear
eu and others calling and trying to piece calls together, I am sure it was for
the callers as well. Again, apologies. By around 05:00z Sunday, things finally
started to quiet down. We slugged it out the best we could.
One thing I do want to bring up is on Sat evening, we had been on a run
frequency for at least 5 hours when a dx station to the south made the choice to
cq about 100hz above us. Obviously not bothering us much other than the callers
but several made comments that we were on top of the dx station. No, it was the
other way around. If it had been a different contest, I might have just moved
somewhere else, but in this contest, run frequencies are hard to come by at
03:00z. I tried to slide down a bit but was on 1835.2 and could not go down too
far due to another station and I still find myself avoiding the dx window. Did
manage about 50hz. I would find it very hard to believe all of us haven't been
in such a situation, or similar, before. I really don't know what to say other
than apologies if you missed them due to our signal, but remember the sequence
of events and situation please.
Enough ranting. Other than the qrn (my ears and brain still hurt) it was a
fantastic time as always. I really appreciate all the Q's and John K4FT coming
down to operate. Due to jet lag, he did quite a bit of operating as I tried to
adjust back to my time zone (and all night contest).
Best 73's all, I love this game. C U in the Stew!
Bryan
W5MX
FTDX3000 and Alpha at 2/3 power due to generator
Inverted L with countless radials
Beverages from 1 to 2 wavelengths long
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