[3830] K3ZO WPX SSB S/O AB HIGH POWER

[Fred Laun K3ZO]

Herewith the K3ZO data:

SOAB High Power


 BAND   Raw QSOs   Valid QSOs   Points   Prefixes   
 _____________________________________________________

   80SSB     142         142        588       83 
   40SSB     115         115        674       47 
   20SSB     787         787       2069      244 
   15SSB    1171        1171       3163      339 
   10SSB     535         535       1497      131 
 _____________________________________________________

 Totals     2750        2750       7991      844 


    Final Score = 6,744,404 points.

    Time used:  Approximately 35 hours 50 minutes.

Thanks to all who suggested that I use a noise-cancelling-by-phase
instrument to solve the line noise problem I described in my summary of the
ARRL Phone DX Contest.  I dragged out my venerable S.E.M. "QRM [sic]
Eliminator", a product of the Isle of Man which Chris, G4BUE, brought over
to me several years ago, and, by golly, as I spent several hours setting it
up with my 15-meter Yagi beaming Asia with my 15-meter 4-el quad as the
noise antenna, I got it to play quite well in that direction.  The key to
making it work optimally is to ignore all S-meter readings and background
noise levels, and simply adjust it while listening to someone run a plie-up
of weak stations who are in the desired direction.  In the week preceding
the contest I monitored some of the Caribbean expeditions as they ran JA's,
and made continual adjustments until I arrived at the point where I could
read the greatest number of JA signals.  Unfortunately the adjustments
change each time the antennas are moved to a new direction and so during
this contest I was really properly set up only to run short-path Asians on
15 meters.  But on that opening KT3Y confirmed that even with my line noise
I was copying Asians better than he was as long as I had the "QRM
Eliminator" engaged.  

Though the power company spent two full days working on my noise problems
in the week prior to the contest, there was still plenty of noise left over
at the end.  On 10 meters I couldn't copy any signals toward Europe that
read less than S-9 on the FT-1000-MP S-meter.  On 15 I couldn't copy any
European signals under S-8.  However on 20 meters the noise was not a
problem so some progress has been made.  On 40 and 80 the noise has never
been a problem for me.  But the 80-meter band was somewhat noisy this
weekend from storm type QRN, though not noisy enough to bother me that
much.  What did bother me was that the U.S. stations running Europeans
while transmitting in the area between 3800-3820 were almost all saying
"listening on [3720 or whatever] AND my own frequency.  This severely
restricts the possibilities of all-band entrants like myself who wish to
find a run frequency in that area for short periods without bothering other
stations who are operating in the same area.  My own modus operandi is to
work only split when I am transmitting in that area, and to operate below
3800 when operating simplex.  

I did much better than I expected to but there were a lot of great scores
out there so I guess I ended up amongst the also-rans this time around.
But I had fun, especially observing the round-the-world echo on East Coast
stations running Asians on 15 while I beamed South.  KE3Q sounded like he
was in an echo chamber even though he was at W3LPL which is only some 35
miles away from me.  I thought 10 was a little less robust than one would
have expected as we are approximately one year away from the predicted
sunspot peak.  Maybe the cycle won't be as great as the initial
predictions.  On the other hand, perhaps predictions of when the peak will
occur have predicted a peak which is earlier than that which will actually
occur.  I hope that the latter is the true situation.

I believe that the activity was great and I am assuming that both the
improving conditions and the new one-point-for-in-country QSOs had
something to do with that.

It was far from a USA QSO party for me, at least.  My antennas were almost
always all pointed away from the USA, and I  made only 372 USA QSOs out of
a total of 2750.  Germans alone accounted for 312 QSOs, for example.


73, Fred       

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