North American QSO Party, CW - January
Call: W8FN
Operator(s): W8FN
Station: W8FN
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: NTX
Operating Time (hrs): 10
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 62 26
80: 119 37
40: 213 44
20: 278 43
15: 27 9
10:
-------------------
Total: 699 159 Total Score = 111,141
Club: DFW Contest Group
Team: Himalayan
Comments:
This one started with a lot of "help" from Mr. Murphy. I was battling
a strange problem somewhere in the RF lineup that produced a bad mismatch on 20
meters, enough to cause the K3 to shut down from overcurrent if the power was
set to greater than 70 watts. After much trial and error, I finally fixed it by
bypassing the 20 meter TX bandpass filter and started the contest a minute late
as a result.
20 was OK, but I couldn't get the rate over 80 for the first couple of hours;
normally the first hour or two in January will run 90+. For the first 5 hours I
was primarily on 20, with a brief sojourn to 15 to pick up the usual bunch of
left coast multipliers, plus a few surprises.
I still have something in the local environment, probably a switching power
supply somewhere, that produces huge amounts of harmonics and trash that make
SO2R extremely difficult despite all the filtering in the station lineup. In the
first five hours about 60 QSOs on 40 with the second radio made the rate merely
horrible rather than abysmal.
After a break of a little over an hour I went to 40. The first couple of hours
produced a nice run. At one time I saw the rate meter peak at around 200 -- a
first for me in NAQP. The rate then declined and for the remainder of the
contest I was jumping between 80 and 160, mostly S&P. I did manage a bit of
a run on 80 very briefly.
Results on 80 were surprising, given my lousy antenna. 80 was plagued by a bunch
of local electrical noise almost 100% of the time. Occasionally the noise would
go away for a few seconds, but it was mostly there covering up all but the
stronger signals the whole time. The Pixel loop on the diversity receiver
channel was a big help on both 40 and 80 in pulling signals out of the noise.
160 seemed to be in great shape here. Despite my terrible antenna, the band was
packed with signals, especially in the last couple of hours. For some reason the
electrical noise wasn't as big a problem on 160. I was amazed that a lot of very
weak stations I called came right back -- there are a lot of folks with very
good ears on 160.
After the very slow start, I had set a goal of 600 QSOs, but as it turned out I
almost made it past the 700 mark. I actually did have 707 in the log, but
discovered I had operated 8 minutes too long and had to discard 8 QSOs and 2
multipliers on 160.
Overall, I'm fairly happy with the results. It's obvious I really need to track
down the source of the self-jamming QRM that puts a huge damper on effective
SO2R operation. Thanks for the QSOs and hope to see y'all in August.
73...
Randy, W8FN
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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