[3830] CQ160 CW K1NK SO LP

[james.mcgivern at verizon.net]

                     CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW
                    
Call: K1NK
Operator(s): K1NK
Station: K1NK

Class: SO LP
QTH: NJ
Operating Time (hrs): 8
 

QSOs: 339  States/Provinces: 43  Countries: 14  Score: 48,108

Comments:

Contest got derailed on Thursday evening while getting the shack ready for the 
test. I discovered a problem with my inverted L...high SWR!

I went outside to see what was up and found a squirrel had severed the antenna 
10 feet above the ground. With no daylight to repair the antenna, I had to use 
my 80M dipole the first night. That lasted about an hour until I gave up in 
frustration. Restrung the L on Saturday morning and was back in biz, but lost 
lots of q's...Oh well.

Conditions were interesting. EU came and went like flipping a light switch the 
first night, as did the Carib stations. Saturday eve was more stable but 
signals were down. West coast was better the first night, but not great either 
night.

I almost bagged the whole test but I got my certs  from last years test in the 
mail on Friday and that got me going again. Through it all I still love this 
band.

Seemed like key clicks were down this year.

I just wanted to respond to ON4UN's remarks about the DX window. I also find it 
strange that the window concept is one sided. I think we could have a NA CQ 
window and an EU CQ window. NA stations could only work DX while in the window 
and the same for DX in the DX CQ window. I anticipate some stations trying to 
stay in the window throughout the contest but that would probably eat into 
their stateside runs/EU runs. It might be self regulating except while the band 
is really open, but at least there would be an area for NA stations to park 
aside from on the fringes of the current window. An additional fly in the 
ointment might be stations SO2R, but I still think it's worth giving it a try.

See you in the VP8GEO pileups!!

73,

JIM - K1NK


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