NAQP FEB 2006
WX4TM/TOM AL
Time: 9:45 hrs
SCORE 85,800
BND QSO MUL
80M 148 43
40M 151 43
20M 264 58
15M 9 6
10M 0 0
TOTAL 572 150
Many tks to all for the Q's. Exceptional good runs on 20, 40 and 80M but
made tactical
error of going to 80M too early when rates began falling on 40 and didn't
check 15 until it was really too late to do too much good. 20 was long with
lots of EU and surprise call from VR2XMT late in afternoon but no ZL or
VK's. Was also surprised to get a call from VE8NSD Garth for my first ever
NWT. There's something about MT and ND because I seem to miss these two so
often. Since moving my QTH summer 2004, I've been rebuilding my antennas and
I've learned alot from my friend K9MUG especially about effects of high and
low angle antennas. I have a 48 ft tower with a 5 ele tribander and a 86 ft
tower with identical 5 ele tribander. The lower ant works best for high
angle, rather close in work, while the high ant is best for DX, the NE and
far western states. I started off with the high beam pointed NE and the low
beam NW. Late in the afternoon, I reversed these positions. I have an 80M L
and a full size 40M vert at 50 ft, both great low angle ants, complimented
by an 80/40M fan dipole at 65 ft. Again the low angle ants work best for dx
and east/west coast while the dipoles work best closer in. This was the
first contest that I think that I was 'almost' proficient at quickly
changing antennas as the need arose - a whole lot of switching back and
forth. Was a good learning experience and great fun. I'd been sick the last
couple of weeks and didn't know if I'd be able to 'go the distance' but felt
pretty good during the enduro with only one half hr break before my time ran
out. As Darrell K9MUG mentioned, we had a good bit of rain qrn and both 40
and 80 were pretty noisy early on but got better late in the evening. I
didn't equal my score from last year but chalk that up to propagation, rain
qrn/noise and the error mentioned above about going to 80M too early. All in
all had a great time. Again, thanks for all the Q's. Tom WX4TM
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