WA7BNM WPX 15m LP

[Bruce Horn]

               CQ World Wide WPX Contest 1996

Call: WA7BNM                                 Country: United States
Mode: SSB                                    Category: Single Op, Low Power
Location: S.Calif                                      Single Band: 15m
Operating Time: 18.7 hours

Band   QSO   Points   Prefixes
--------------------------------
 15    479    493      272   =   134,096


Comments:

Ended up on 15m single band again, after briefly considering:
  10m - No: too boring
  20m - No: too crowded, too many nets, too many SSTVers
  40m - No: low power/split operation/West Coast, no sleep
  80m - No: dipole, no sleep

High Points:

  Found TJ1RA on Saturday without a pileup. Had him repeat his call
  because I couldn't believe I was hearing a TJ on 15m. New band
  country for me. (I know this doesn't rate as exciting from the 
  East Coast.)

  While sustaining my amazing 4 Qs/hour run of zero pointers on Sunday
  afternoon, was called by TJ1GB (op, W6RJ).  Zowie. When it rains it
  pours. Two TJs on 15m in one weekend!

  While my wife was gardening in the front yard on Sunday, a car, whose
  occupants had been peering at my tower and antennas, pulled to the
  curb.  My wife braced herself for the complaint. Surprise!  The gentleman
  who got out of the car was a ham from Tahiti who was visiting a neighbor
  in the next block.

  Zero point QSOs. (I know I must be desperate if I'm listing zero point
  QSOs as a high point.)  At least someone heard me.  Even had an 80 hour
  of zero pointers.

Low Points:

Lack of sunspots resulted in lack of activity on 15m. Even when signals were
good, there just weren't many on the band. To add insult to injury, solar
flux dropped from 71 to 70 during the contest.

No Europe. An EA8 was as close as I got.

For comparison, here's the results from my past three years of WPX SSB.
All with the same operator, same location, same transceiver, same 15m low
power category. Antenna change for 1996, but no impact on score.

                    <------------------ QSOs ------------------>
Year   Score   Prfx Tot   NA(0 pnt)   SA    EU    AS    AF    OC
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1994  841,940  473  922   365(312)    18   106   366    14    53
1995  448,448  352  663   271(224)    56    14   282    10    30
1996  134,096  272  479   346(299)    70     0    27     8    28


73 de Bruce, WA7BNM   (bhorn at netcom.com)