IARU HF World Championship - 2020
Call: K8TE
Operator(s): K8TE
Station: K8TE
Class: SOABMixed HP
QTH: Rio Rancho NM
Operating Time (hrs): 14
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Zones HQ Mults
-------------------------------------
160:
80:
40: 131
20: 624 80
15: 10
10:
-------------------------------------
Total: 765 80 57 32 Total Score = 210,841
Club: Albuquerque DX Assn
Comments:
"No plan of operations reaches with any certainty beyond the first
encounter with the enemy's main force." Helmuth von Moltke And so it was
for this year's IARU HF Championship for me. The enemy? First, getting
sufficient rest for a 24-hour battle. I had a plan. Then I met the enemy.
I got to bed almost on time Friday night. There was little left to do other
than reviewing VOACAP's predictions. Based on an SFI of 68, concern about
propagation seemed irrelevant. We're still awaiting a contractor to install an
evaporative cooler and enduring a record heat wave!
A portable cooler in the living room keeps my lovely spouse satisfied. However,
only a large fan in the bedroom brings in the cooler (eventually) air from
outside. There was no cool air at 10:00 p.m. Sleeping just wasn't possible!
So, I got up, reviewed the VOACAP results, and went back to bed an hour later.
It still wasn't sufficiently cool!
There were no sugar plum ferries in my head, just thoughts of making many
contacts and nabbing many mults plus HQ stations. An earlier, delicious Italian
meal reared its ugly head around 0300. Eight planned hours of sleep turned into
four! Time to make coffee.
Located at the southern end of the Rocky Mountains, northern NM with low dipoles
doesn't hear much on 20m while you East Coast guys are at the end of the
European fire hose of QSO's. You're working them on 40m too. My first 15 QSO's
were Pacific Rim and Oceania mults on 40m CW. OK. I'll take that start.
As Hank, W6SX, says, "If you ain't running, you ain't winning." I
settled on 7032 and had three runs at 137.0, 101.9, and 65.5 QSO's/hour. They
were broken up by working spotted mults too good to pass up. With the rates
decreasing, the Sun getting higher in the sky, and lots of 20m spots appearing,
it was time to move to 20m.
Daytime for my station rarely brings 20m EU calls. But there was a virtual
plethora of callers ready to work the "rare" zone 7 or maybe just a
lot of folks tired of watching Car 54 re-runs during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Regardless, I had lots of callers. Everything was working well, at least as
well as expected, including the KPA1500 which generates significant heat.
However, the next enemy encounter was the same entity that brought
"improving" propagation--the Sun. The temperature was rising. The
ceiling fan continued rotating and I moved the table fan into the exhaust mode.
However, there was too much hot air in the shack (only 80 SSB QSO's so I didn't
contribute much hot air) to make for anything like comfortable operating.
Finally, at 97F, I took a break. Call it operator error or just giving up, it
was too hot for me at my advanced age! After a break, I got out the portable
A/C used in the RV trailer in case FD operating exceeded allowable operating
temperature limits. With some cardboard and painters tape, the shack
temperature began to drop into the high 80's. One enemy met with a modified
plan. Three hours later, both the shack and I were cooler.
20m was still going strong at 2300 UTC and stayed strong until nearly 0300 when
it became obvious it was time to move to 40m. Enemy encounter #3 is about to
happen. I use my station almost every day, mostly on 40m and 20m. I checked
the ATU "training" ahead of the contest. Everything was as ready as
it was going to be. I had made 131 40m contacts earlier that morning. 40m and
I were ready, or so I thought.
After nine S&P contacts, I began to run on 7052.16. Seven contact later an
alien space creature (Roswell isn't far from here) arrived and I was in the
middle of an episode of "The Twilight Zone", one of my favorite TV
shows. (Rod and his brother were from the New York Finger Lakes area near where
I grew up in a suburb of Syracuse NY. I met Rod's brother Bob at the Radio
Shack (#9 then) where I was assistant manager (another long story). I
digress.)
This alien caused my PC to go nuts! Windows Explorer opened without my asking.
TRN Monitor crashed. Then N1MM+ began sending the caller's callsign over and
over and over again. I did the thing I always told clients when I worked at the
Gateway call center here in town--close and re-open the program then re-boot the
PC if that doesn't work.
What finally worked was saving the log to the Cloud and grabbing a beer.
Neither of those solved the problem but I felt better (and cooler). Was I
disappointed? You bet! Did I complete my plan? No way! Did I have some fun?
You bet, just not enough. Maybe I'll try investigating the issue which is
mostly likely RFI brought to Earth by an evil, anti-radiosport alien.
("Star Trek the Next Generation" is way better than "The Twilight
Zone".)
I'll close with a rewarding message I received via e-mail during the contest. I
worked W4FLL for his first CW contact ever yesterday. Tom thanked me for
slowing (way) down to his speed which I always do for slower callers. From his
message, he sounded thrilled that would happen. It should happen every time.
We need all the "casual" contesters we can get. Please do your part
to motivate them to play with us. Next to sports car racing (only one of three
true sports according to Ernest Hemingway), radiosport is my all-time favorite
activity! Thanks for the contacts yesterday. And put on your aluminum foil
hats--the aliens are lurking!
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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