[3830] ARRL 10 W6YX M/S HP

[n7mh@arrl.net]

                    ARRL 10-Meter Contest

Call: W6YX
Operator(s): K6IF, N6DE, W6LD, N7MH, KG6FLT, KG6OAV
Station: W6YX

Class: M/S HP
QTH: Stanford, CA
Operating Time (hrs): 34

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
   CW: 1154   125
  SSB: 1666   130
-------------------
Total: 2820   255  Total Score = 2,027,760

Club: Northern California Contest Club

Comments:

This was a weekend to remember mainly because we experienced the 3rd worst
windstorm of the past 50 years in the San Francisco Bay Area (according to the
San Jose Mercury News).  We were told that gusts on our ridge had exceeded 100
miles per hour.  Here's a brief rundown of what we experienced.

After a good rate to the east for the first half-hour of the contest, the band
abruptly closed in that direction at about 0033Z.  We continued working Asian
and Pacific stations until 0225Z then spent the rest of the first evening
working all of the 7-land states, some California stations, one station each in
TX, GA, OK, and LA, and a bunch of loud Colorado stations.

Around 0500Z I noticed that the ACOM amplifier indicated that the High Voltage
was too low.  After several unsuccessful attempts to restart it we switched in
an Alpha 78 that would run off 110 Volts.  At about the same time we saw that
the Alpha 87A was only putting out about half its normal output power.

In the morning we continued to limp along with these amplifiers.  Europeans were
weak on Saturday, but workable.  At 2048Z, while mid-QSO with a K4, the logging
computer suddenly turned off.  The rigs quickly shut down also.  We had lost
commercial power - it wasn't restored until Thursday, 5 days later.

We scrambled to get our generator set up and made our next QSO at 2104Z, but we
had an underpowered generator that could only run the computers and two stations
barefoot.  We borrowed a generator from Dave, WZ6E, and got it set up and
running at 2230Z.  Dan, K6IF, built a 220 volt extension cord so that we could
use the ACOM and Alpha 87A amps, only to discover that the generator supplied
only 110 V.  One of our Alpha 78 amps had been loaned to Scotty, W7SW, since we
figured with 2 full-power amps and a spare we'd have plenty of amps.  Scotty
returned the amp late in the afternoon and we were back on the air with
near-full power for both our run and S&P stations.

We had  more power interruptions to refuel the generators.  We ended up with
only one powered rotator, on a C31XR we had put up the weekend before the
contest.  The wind had spun it so that the indicator was about 150 degrees off. 
Our normally rotatable Telrex 6-element was stuck pointing toward Europe, which
was a good direction since our other fixed antennas were pointing toward the
eastern US.

The late afternoon and early evening openings were much as they were on the
first day.  We were pleasantly surprised by the Saturday evening opening that
was primarily to the midwest and southeast US.  In the middle of the opening at
0440Z we refueled the generators in the pouring rain as lightning struck around
us, then went back into the shack, cold, wet, and with no light or heat (except
that provided by the rigs, amps, and computers).  We made a quick decision to
QRT for the night and hope that an equally good opening would await us in the
early morning.

After getting back on the air at 1230Z we spent half an hour fruitlessly CQ'ing
and were finally rewarded by K0VX in ND on CW for our last state.  I asked if he
could QSY to phone, where ND was also our last state needed, but he said his
microphone was broken and he hadn't had a chance to repair it.

Things continued very slowly for the next hour, with a very brief European
opening around 1330Z.  The band opened up to South America, the Caribbean,
Africa, then the eastern US.  Finally at 1500Z Europeans became workable and
very strong signals were heard from F6BEE, ON4UN, 9H1ZA, DF9ZP, and others.

We worked all but 2 multipliers we heard.  We ended up working all states on
both phone and CW, missing DC on phone, missing LB, NT, YT, and NU on phone and
CW.  I heard 4U1ITU on CW on Saturday while the band was just opening up, but
couldn't be heard by him.  We spent a long time calling OE1EMS on phone on
Sunday but he never heard us.

Thanks to all for the Q's.  Thanks to my fellow operators for persevering under
the adverse conditions.  We hope to have a better emergency set-up in the future
so that things run more smoothly.

73,
-Mike, N7MH


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