CQWW WPX Contest, CW - 2021
Call: NN5P
Operator(s): K5PI
Station: W5KFT
Class: SOAB HP
Class Overlay: Unassisted
QTH: TX
Operating Time (hrs): 33
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160:
80: 10
40: 851
20: 1453
15: 454
10: 35
------------
Total: 2803 Prefixes = 948 Total Score = 8,505,552
Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club
Comments:
Thunderstorms were forecast for this weekend, and soon after I arrived at the
W5KFT station, they did too. There were some of the most intense I've ever seen
at the “radio ranch”. Connectors in the antenna feed-through panel would
pop a bit from time to time. But then came a CRACK! that sounded like someone
snapping a broomstick. Uh oh, I hope I really did get everything disconnected!
I was off the air for the first two hours or so, and then plugged everything
back in and got down to business. The beverage was a lifesaver on 40 and I felt
like I was able to do pretty well, although I didn't really do much with the
second radio.
I slept for three hours after EU sunrise. The 40 JA run was pretty good but
nothing to write home about. 20 opened up nicely and I kept checking on 15, but
nothing doing. By mid morning, I was really wondering if 15 could be completely
dead so about 1430, I decided to check the 15M stack. It was dead. No position
gave me anything resembling an antenna (so hopefully it's just the switch box).
I decided to plug in a TH7 at 60' that we generally use for South America. That
got things going. I used that single antenna for 15 all weekend. I didn't make
a big play on 15 on Saturday, but it was pretty good on Sunday. I worked a
handful of JAs.
Mid morning, I added our second TH7 to 20M to cover NW. We have some
inter-station interference but something wasn't right. 20 was interfering with
15, which I don't remember happening. K6LL dropped by to let me know that I was
spewing spurs. He said it sounded like an arcing antenna. Thanks Dave and
sorry, all, for the QRM. The SWR on the TH7 was good, but when I took it
offline, the noise on 15 stopped. That's an important antenna to cover NW on
20, but I decided after 15 faded I could put the good TH7 inline for 20. That
worked but certainly imposed some limitations on direction selection. The more
toys you have, the more time you spend fixing them!
I did 33 hours and operated unassisted. Sorry to see the demise of those
categories. I'll be submitting my logs to www.unassisted.org to participate in
that challenge.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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