[3830] NAQP CW N3BB Single Op LP

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                    North American QSO Party, CW

Call: N3BB
Operator(s): N3BB
Station: N3BB

Class: Single Op LP
QTH: Texas
Operating Time (hrs): 10
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:   19    12
   80:   51    33
   40:  201    51
   20:  271    53
   15:  132    43
   10:   28    15
-------------------
Total:  702   207  Total Score = 145,314

Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club

Team: Austin Powers

Comments:

What a day Saturday.  Putting together the WRTC 2002 talk for the CTDXCC session
at the Austin Summerfest hamfest took quite a bit
of time last week, and I got to Summerfest early in order to get the
A/V stuff in the room.  The K5TR and K5NA/KK5MI presentations were
excellent, and CTDXCC had a big crowd.

I got home at around 12:30 PM (1830Z), and got the contest set up completed in
all of five minutes!  My first QSO was at 1833Z, so I missed half of the first
hour and the fun rush that comes with the start of the contest.  My first half
hour was not great, with 49 QSOs in 27 minutes, so K5PI, Rob, a great young
contester here, had a great start with his terrific 136 first hour.  Ten meters
was still open, and I CQ'd and moved stations to ten meters before the band
closed completely.  15 went dead at 23Z, and it was not possible to move anyone
to 10 or 15 for most of the contest.  Thanks to AC5AA for moving to 10 for me.
Duane was my only "rare TX" on 10 meters!  I worked SO2R hard, with 142 of 702
QSOs coming from the Alternate Radio.  My off times were 1800-1832 at
the start, plus 1913-1942 when we had a flare and the bands died for 15
minutes, and finally 2127-2125 with blah-conditions in the mid afternoon
before 40 opened and 20 perked up.  I wanted to save my operating time for 20
meters after sunset and the evening on 40, plus the last three hours when 80 and
160 are most active.  That left no off time for the "Big
Storm," which really tanked me with more than an hour of S9 plus rain
static.  The sky got dark, with gray-green clouds.  It looked terrible!  I
listened on the beverages and transmitted on 20 and 40, but without the
beverages, I would have made zero QSOs for 90 minutes.  Fortunately we got no
lightning strikes here.  Later, I ran 20 and 40 for hours,and moved
people to the other bands.  My mult totals are pretty blah for all these
moves, so I can't see much success from my efforts, but I worked hard and did
move 31 stations to one other band!  

I was unhappy with my station's performance on 80 and 160, and know I must
rework these bands.  The 80 meter antenna didn't load very well, and 70 Watts
was the most output power I could get there.  I was not able to get any runs
going at all on either band, but did get most of the people to hear me when I
moved 'em there.  On 40, I was surprised to learn that the shorty-forty 402CD at
65 feet was much better than the big 3 element monster at 120 feet.  I had the 3
el on W1-2-3, and the 402CS on W6-7.  The 402CD covered the country better,
while the 3 el had a sharp pattern, got into Europe, and made the non W1-2-3
stations watery and weak.  This was a high angle contest for sure.  Not a good
effort from here.  Congrats to K5PI and the other good scores.  As they say,
"wait 'till next time."


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