[3830] SS CW K6LA SO LP

[owner-3830 at contesting.com]

Call: K6LA
Operator(s): K6LA
Station: K6LA

Class: SO High Power
Operating Time (hrs): 24

Section: LAX

Summary:
 Band     QSOs
-------------------------------
  160:       
   80:     68
   40:    317
   20:    242
   15:    525
   10:    115
-------------------------------
Total:   1267 x     79  =  200186

Comments:

Saturday up until the contest was 3 hours old was not a good day for me. At
my
daughter's morning soccer game, a dad of a girl on my daughter's team
started
screaming at the young woman who is the coach that she couldn't let his
daughter play goalkeeper, even though the girl wanted to. Having dealt with
abusive parents as a little league manager, I made a loud remark that soccer
is
a team game and the coach decides where the kids play. After trading
insults,
the guy shoved me, I shoved him back and he squared off in a boxer's pose
and
wanted to have a fist fight. My wife and another mom jumped between us, so I
didn't have to start the contest bloodied. 

However, Murphy followed me home and when I powered up the station 40
minutes
before the start, the Alpha 87 on the CQ station went down with a receive
pin
diode error that was just fixed a few weeks ago. With my testosterone level
still up from the earlier encounter, I spewed forth invectives that my son
had
never before heard from me. I then moved my other Alpha 87 to the CQ radio
and
took the backup MLA-2500 out of the closet, but it wouldn't work. Had to go
barefoot on the S&P radio and got beat out many times on 2nd radio calls.

I was still sweating profusely from moving all the equipment around when the
contest started and I made a major tactical mistake by starting on 15 meters
when I should have been on 10 meters with everybody else. I figured 10
meters
wouldn't be open a long time and I had staked out a prime frequency on 15
meters. After 3 hours I was barely ahead of last year when I ran low power.
That alone cost me my first real shot at a top 10 high power finish. 

Like many others, after I found VY1JA on 15 meters late Sat. afternoon, I
figured the sweep would be easy. I took my night break needing MAR, ND, WY
and
KP2. I found ND (the only one I heard. Where was WD0T?) and WY early. With
about 6 hours left I heard VE1AYY on 20 meters giving an exchange in long
format, ie, your # is xx and my section is MAR and my power is 100 watts,
etc.
I asked him to move up 1 but I don't know if he heard me and besides that
frequency was in use and I moved the CQ radio to 20 meters up a few more and
CQ'd for 10 minutes to no avail. Later I heard KP2N twice S&Ping on 15
meters
and CQ'd up a few to no avail. I heard the mess of a KP2N pileup, including
a
pileup cop who sent over and over and over something like LIDS XMIT WITHOUT
LISTENING, and he was real loud. I bagged the pile-up and figured there
would
be no sweep this year. A little while later I noticed the pile-up was gone,
and
a few minutes later KP2N called me on 15 meters. With a little over 2 hours
to
go I changed my CQ to CQ VE1 CQ SS K6LA, hoping to attract VE1AYY or someone
else in the right place and after a while someone (I think VE7QO, thanks OM
if
it was you, cause he later asked if I got the VE1) dropped a "down 30" on my
CQ
frequency. Sure enough, VE9HF was handing out low numbers and I got him on
the
first call for the sweep. 

Last year I couldn't find NL and this year 3 called me. Last year I had 1
PAC
and this year there must have been half a dozen. Also, VY0P was giving out
BIG
numbers in NWT. Who were those guys?

I, too, felt activity was down considerably from the last few years. I
figured
scores would be way up with 10, 15 & 20 meters so hot. But the Sunday
afternoon
doldrums were just that.

Now I've got to pack up the Alpha once again. I'm promised it back in time
for
the phone weekend.

73, K6LA, Ken 6 Los Angeles


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