N3BB IARU Multi-op Score

Russ russ at admin.inetport.com
Tue Jul 16 22:24:17 EDT 1996


 Jim, N3BB and I used IARU as a shakedown cruise for his "new" station.  Gone
 is the garage location and in it's place is a fantastic new radio/guest
 house. Jim has installed Top Ten Devices a/b switches, antenna relays and band
 decoders to automate band changes and antenna selection, plus Dunestar
 bandpass filters and this was our first test to see if everything 
 worked together.  Unfortunately we had major problems with RF affecting 
 our ability to change antennas as well as use the computers to log and 
 send code.  Some band/antenna/amp combinations worked while some 
 didn't.  In addition, the radio that worked usually had the wrong rotor
 controls in front of it.  We eventually gave up moving rotors and either
 walked across the room to turn'em or just gave directions to whoever was
 closer. Also, while we had all of the antennas available, we didn't have the
 ability to switch between the antennas in the stacks for 10, 15 and 20 as
the 12 
 volt switching lines had not yet been run to the shack.

 Jim had done a good job of getting almost everything installed and 
 connected, but we still worked all Friday evening and EARLY Saturday 
 morning tying up some loose ends.  We finally decided to get some 
 sleep about 5 hours before the contest started.
 
 The contest was a success as far as locating, and actually fixing some of
 the problems, but our effort really suffered because of it.  It was a pretty
 laid back effort as Jim even let ME operate cw!  It was lotsa fun although
 much of it was sent entirely by keyer as the computers didn't cooperate. (I
 apologize to those who suffered through my exchange.)
 
 Overall we probably got in about 21.5 hours of operating time.
 


 Conditions were kinda strange.  I was on 20m SSB for the first few hours on
 Saturday and noticed that the band was extremely quiet.  I had about 4 
 120+  hours but kept checking to make sure I had an antenna hooked up.  
 No qrm or qrn but a good  number of stations calling.
 
 Summary: 84% of our q's were North America.  Just not a whole lot of DX
anywhere.
 
 Band-by-Band

 160: Tnx VE6JY for the sked on Sunday a.m.
 
 80: Not much time spent here.  Jim worked a JA on SSB at our Sunrise Sunday.
 Kinda funny as Jim was filling out the 10 minutes from a band change by
 calling CQ around 3800.  He decided to tune the bands and came across a
 station calling him blind on 3805. It turned out to be JA0JHA - a nice  
 freebie.  (Jim sends apologies for not calling CQ in the JA window as we
needed the
 zone 45 mult on 75/80 - so thanks for calling us in your window.) 

 40: Small JA run on Sunday a.m. ended due to an equipment problem.  

 20: Less than 125 EU and JA combined.  Nice little EU opening over the pole
 on Satuday evening.  Very calm as far as contests go.  I still could't  
 believe all the wide open space to CQ in.  I was able to copy guys on 
 SSB I normally wouldn't hear for QRM.  Nice stateside runs.
 
 15: A few Europeans and just 1 JA (worked skew path).  Can you say
 STATESIDE.  Not 5 pointers but they sure run good!
 
 10: Not much.  Definitely no EU or JA.  Missed the first opening due to my
 not wanting to leave a 160 hour on 20m (a 10 minute rule trade-off).  We
caught a   secondary opening albeit missing 2 mults in the loud W1AW/3 and ZD8Z.
 
 Given the conditions lately I think this is a really good contest to operate
 single op.  No 10 minute rule allows you to move multipliers freely and the
 ability to use a second radio would allow you to run on the one good band
 and s&p on whatever other band was marginal.  The 24 hour format minimizes
 the fatigue factor and packet help, at least down here, was virtually
 non-existent.  The ultimate would be a single op, 2 radio mixed mode entry.
 I'm sure a good op at a decent station could turn in a pretty big score in
 that situation, probably beating most multiop's.
 
         Multi-op:
 
         Callsign: N3BB          Op's: N3BB, AA5RB
 
      BAND      QSO   QSO-PTS   PTS/Q   ZONES  HQ STNS 
 
       160        9       17	 1.89     4        1
        80       42      110     2.62     8        1
        40      405     1289     3.18    23       10
        20      962     2842     2.95    31       11
        15      459     1333     2.90    23        7
        10       17       53     3.12     6        0
      ---------------------------------------------------------
 
      Totals   1894     5644     2.98    95       30  (21.5 hours)
 
                  Score: 705,500 points  (rough estimate, should increase
slightly)

 
 As Jim said to me Monday morning, the further back this contest gets the
more fun
 it was.  It was a very frustrating affair, but it had its moments.
 
 73 and see y'all in the the next contest.
 
 Russ--  
 AA5RB
 russ at inetport.com




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