2002 North American QSO Party
Team: Baud Boys
KI6DY - Bob - KS
VE6RAJ - Raj - AB
K1US - Jon - ME
W1ZT - George - MA
AK0A - William - KS
W1ZT Score:
80 35 22
40 123 45
20 140 36
15 59 21
10 16 10
TOTAL 373 Qso 134 Mult
373 QSOs x 134 = 49982 Claimed Score
Icom 756PRO + WriteLog and RITTY
Force 12 C4 @ 65 ft
80m Inv Vee @ 60 ft
Stop here if you don't want the rest of the saga:
Comments:
Conditions were "fair" at the beginning compared to last year and my
total for the first couple hours was even a little better rate than last
year. But I just "knew" that the bands and activity were down. The
signal strength and "crowd" was just not there. After starting on 15m
and checking 10m often... I guess I do it the old fashion way with one
radio and a band switch... I knew that the last years' total of 426 was
not likely to be met. But my sign on the monitor says GET THE NEXT QSO
... so I kept going. After all, the Baud Boys were up against some of
the best. I had worked all but Ekki, DF4OR, of the Shaeferhunds... I
guess he was dreaming of better days at EA8 :-)) This would be bad if
the NAQP Team winners had names like Gee Bees, Hunds, or something of
that sort. Plus, I would really have trouble getting my TI9M QSL from
AK0A. I had spoofed about propagation to Bill before the contest.
The lights went out at 2105 after logging W0HW. There was absolutely
nothing... all bands. I did what everyone else probably did... look
and see if the radio is still on... is the antenna still up? Finally I
got to my email and sent the message that we had closed up the moved
further north to get rid of all the contest QRM and take a nap...
I went to my favorite web site http://dx.qsl.net/propagation/ to have
a look at the Xray chart. BTW, this is one of the best sites with
excellent links if you want to study modern propagation data and
forecast formats. The flare was on the chart... X 1.95 when I saw it.
It later progressed to X 3.3 which is huge but not the biggest we have
experienced. As a new student of modern propagation forecasting, I did
not know how long this "blackout" would last. And I thought it would be
deja vue for 2 years ago when high lattitudes lost it but everyone else
was OK...
But when I returned to 20m and logged WX4TM (big signals) at 2156 and
9A5W at 2204 I thought we were back in business... But 15m was now lost
to me and a significant QSO and mult total. The rest of the time was
spent pushing hard on 20m, 40m and 80m. So it was only a 51 minute gap
here... but what a difference in multipliers and total stations
available.
Highlights and Lowlight:
One observation I noted and will remember for the future: With Chen and
others turning off the 25KW amps, many signals were S7 to S8 and subject
to the normal skip zones without appreciable backscatter. I struggled
with KR6E, Ben, to complete an exchange through 3 actual layers of guys
constantly calling CQ on top of us (and each other). They were not
getting answers; we finally completed our exchange (thanks to Ben's
patience). This type of "layering" happened frequently on both 20m and
15m. And it was usually stations within each other's skip zone who
likely did not hear each other at all. Quite often I would find what I
thought may be a clear frequency, listen, and finally detect the
presence of someone in my own skip zone here in New England. My lesson
(re)learned, endless CQing will not produce contacts with direct,
on-frequency QRM. And I need to actually listen to the frequency at the
tones being used to see if, indeed, there is QRM. ... I find this hard
for me at 2125 Hz so I use lower tones so I can hear actual signals as
well as QRM better.
Lots of good operating and quick exchanges. Two ND stations called !!!!
WOW !!! Still one of the most fun and short operating contests of the
summer.
Thanks to all for the contacts... thanks to some who called and I just
could not extract the callsign. And then there were those who I heard
and just did not hear me.... Ugh!! Back to my sign on the monitor...
GET THE NEXT QSO...
73, George .. W1ZT
|