[3830] AA4LR NAQP CW
Bill Coleman AA4LR
aa4lr@radio.org
Thu, 14 Jan 1999 14:14:27 -0500
North American QSO Party 1999
Date: 1/9/1999 Call: AA4LR QTH: GA
Mode: CW Class: Single Op
Band QSOs mults
160CW 3 2
80CW 69 27
40CW 47 24
20CW 64 27
15CW 25 12
10CW 9 6
Total: 217 98 Score: 21,266
Hours: 5.9
Team: South East Contest Club Bedsprings
Equipment:
Kenwood TS430S running 30-90 watts out
125 foot doublet at 15 feet, open wire feeders and Murch UT-2000 tuner
Cushcraft R7000 at 8 feet
20 year old CMOS keyer
Comments:
NAQP is, I think, my favorite contest. My operating time was somewhat
limited because of poor planning. Five years ago, my wife gave birth to
our daughter Katharine on this date. This mandated a late start, plus a
few long times off.
This is a personal best for NAQP, improving on last years score by about
10%. More Qs, but 10 fewer mults in a similar amount of operating time.
For some reason, the mults weren't there on either 15m or 160m as
compared to last year.
Had some equipment problems. Battery supply voltage was a bit low at the
start, and the radio would drop out when keyed much more than 50 watts
out. So, I ran most of the contest at around 50 watts, dropping down to
35 watts on the low end of 40m.
160m didn't do so well this year. I again tried to use my "secret" 160m
antenna, where I load about 80 watts into the R7000. I discovered this by
accident last year. Unfortunately, fewer ops could hear me this time, but
I managed to get a few Qs for my effort.
Although the SECC had 5 teams active, I worked very few of them. Worked
W4OC, K9AY, N4YO, and WA4ILO. Also, on my own team "Bedsprings" (which
refers to the quality of antennas we're using) I worked NJ8J and K4TW.
I'm getting better at this contest CW receiving and sending. I got to the
point where I could send CW without having to think about it overly much.
Bill Coleman, AA4LR, PP-ASEL Mail: aa4lr@radio.org
Quote: "Not within a thousand years will man ever fly!"
-- Wilbur Wright, 1901
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