ARRL 160-Meter Contest
Call: AE0EE
Operator(s): AE0EE
Station: AE0EE
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: MN
Operating Time (hrs): 16
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 330 Sections = 71 Countries = 1 Total Score = 47,736
Club: Minnesota Wireless Assn
Comments:
100 W, keyed entirely with a Vibroplex bug. 80/160 m fan dipole horizontal at
30', 160 m "inverted L" up 30-35' at apex, most around 20' with one
radial on the ground that transitions to an elevated radial on a slope.
Conditions were tough. I was a few hours late to the party Friday night, and
when I arrived there was lots of heavy QRN. My station can usually hear pretty
well, but I was having trouble---as were most people trying to hear me. I
called it a night with about 100 contacts in the log.
Saturday morning (local) conditions were better, and I think that getting up at
6:30 was too late. I worked as many stations as I could before the D-layer shut
the band down.
Saturday night was, once again, a bit of a mess. Between the active geomagnetic
field, some big storms over Illinois, and a lot of snow and wind over my
station, it was once again hard to hear. I managed to run a little here and
there, but mostly had to resort to search-and-pounce. I finished off the night
with a KH6 around 1:00 AM CST. After shutting the rig down, I took in the cable
that runs across part of the driveway to the fan dipole so that if the plow came
my cable wouldn't be in the way.
Sunday morning conditions were, once again, quite a bit better. I only ran on
the inverted L, which seems to be the inferior of the two antennas, at least for
much of the domestic work. I suspect it's too well coupled into the ground, and
not enough coupled into the ionosphere.
It was fun to work so many friends, and to hear the Fall Creek Contest Club on
the air as W0AIH. Sunday morning I worked two VK0EK DXpedition partners,
including one for a new multiplier. While I didn't get as many mults as I did
in Sweepstakes (SSB), I did continue my tradition of beating both score and QSO
counts from November Sweepstakes. This year, because I had a very limited CW
entry in Sweepstakes, I beat the combined Sweepstakes score was just 1 QSO short
of the combined Sweepstakes QSO count.
Many of the missed multipliers were the usual suspects: AK, PR, VI, NT, NL.
However, I also missed a lot of 4-land. Rounding out the missing sections are
NLI, LAX, AL (missed in Sweeps, too!), SC, NFL, SFL, and WCF. The only
non-US/CA DX I worked was ZF, and I heard but couldn't get a response from F,
C6, OM, S5, JA, and PJ2.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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