[3830] CQ160 CW K8FC SO HP

[k8fc@arrl.net]

                     CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW
                    
Call: K8FC
Operator(s): K8FC
Station: K8FC

Class: SO HP
QTH: Co
Operating Time (hrs): 24
 

QSOs: 665  States/Provinces: 56  Countries: 14  Score: 107,310

Comments:

This is my first experience operating a contest from the middle of nowhere !  I 
moved to southern Colorado for the sheer beauty and altitude.  Man I have that 
in spades.  What I don't have is propagation to Europe, Asia and most other 
places. :)  Now I can officially complain, it hurts to hear the eastcoast 
working europe around the clock.  Also sitting here at 3 pm local in bright 
sunshine listening to the contest rage on in the east and midwest is not a lot 
of fun.  I guess I am for shortening it up to 30 hours as it does me no good to 
be able to start at 2200 and still only have propagation to the east a very 
limited time during my period of darkness. 

 Lastly, 14 countries in a DX contest is pretty poor.  My operating conditions 
were acceptable with two full size transmit antennas and two 600' beverages but 
NO DX to speak of.

It looks like I will have to get used to the propagation or lack there-of.  

Alas, as always, I enjoyed the contest.  Key clicks were abound, but to me it 
is going to be very hard to get the rigs cleaned up.  I think the manufacturers 
should really listen to the clicks  and smooth out the rise and fall times of 
the envelope.  These rigs are expensive and we should expect top performance 
from them.

While I am on the soapbox what constitutes DX ?  To me, now that I am in a big 
dummy load for rf,  all the Canadian provences are wonderful DX.  I would 
support them being in the window.  Unfortunately, this view would not be held 
by lets say folks in Michigan or Wisconsin or other northern states.  I only 
use this as an example, am I not dx to someone who needs Colorado ?  I think we 
need a stateside window and a dx window.  Stateside is dx to all who are not in 
the states and visa versa.

Thanks for the bandwitdth es 73's

k8fc



Thanks to everyone who gave me a point especially the folks I could not hear 
well.

joe k8fc


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