[3830] NAQP SSB K4XS Single Op LP

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                    North American QSO Party, SSB

Call: K4XS
Operator(s): K4XS
Station: K4XS

Class: Single Op LP
QTH: FL
Operating Time (hrs): 10

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:    5     5
   80:   77    32
   40:  111    46
   20:  570    65
   15:  258    52
   10:  109    32
-------------------
Total: 1130   232  Total Score = 262,160

Club: Florida Contest Group

Team: FCG #1

Comments:

With last year's summer NAQP SSB being terminated at the half-way mark by the
famous Florida thunderstorms, I was very happy to hear a forecast of only a
chance of isolated thunderstorms.  That's about as good as we Florida hams can
hope for in August.

With my wife's laptop hooked up to the radar site, I sat down 15 minutes before
the contest to warm-up and found the bands in so-so condition. 
I took my first break around 2000Z.  I was surprised by how good ten meters
was.
The amazing thing though, was that although when 10 is open FL has a pipeline to
CA, I never worked a CA station.

Things were really going pretty good, but I kept noticing on the radar how the
"isolated thunderstorms" were developing in to a massive wall of intensive
storms moving across the state of FL...with an ETA of around 2300Z.  Then the
crawl across the weather channel started with the dangerous thunderstorm
warning, penny sized hail...blah, blah, blah.  I pulled the plug and waitied for
the ominous wall to move through.  It thundered but I never saw lightning.  With
all the antennas I had to QRT for an hour in prime time. 
 
I got back on but the noise level was horrendous for the rest of the contest. 
My apologies for all those I asked for repeats but with  storms 25 miles away it
was rough, especially on 160.

Highlights:
I worked WAS on 20.  I don't think I have ever done that in any NAQP on a single
band.
65 mults on a singe band...not even in a winter NAQP.
beat my old personal high score for summer NAQP by 30000 pts

Lows:
managed only 5 qsos on 160 with the nasty qrn
being told by CA stations on other bands that they had worked FL on 10...and my
not being able to work the usual pile of CA stations

In all, a great contest.  It's always fun to see old friends and meet new
contesters in the NAQP.  Lots of thanks to the guys who get on and only make 50
or so qsos for an hour or so and then QRT.  You make the contest a good one by
giving the full-timers guys to work.


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