[3830] CQ/RJ WW RTTY AA5AU SOAB(A) HP

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                    CQ/RJ Worldwide DX Contest, RTTY

Call: AA5AU
Operator(s): AA5AU
Station: AA5AU

Class: SOAB(A) HP
QTH: LA
Operating Time (hrs): 40
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Pts   State/Prov  DX   Zones
------------------------------------------
   80:  163   203       47      16    12
   40:  286   525       50      57    23
   20:  433   798       52      75    27
   15:  640  1476       52      87    30
   10:  288   757       25      67    20
------------------------------------------
Total: 1810  3759      112     302   226  Total Score = 2,405,760

Club: 

Comments:

After last year's SOHP win, there wasn't much to motivate me this year.  The
idea was to go Assisted to keep an eye on the cluster to make sure the 3C0
didn't show up on RTTY somewhere, anywhere - especially the WARC bands and to
miss an opportunity to work them on RTTY.  So I filtered 3C0V out along with my
RTTY spots.

My head & heart were not totally into this year's contest.  It didn't make
matters any better when condx were crap for the first half of the contest.  At
0000Z or so at the start of Sunday, the A dropped to 6 and the K was 2.  This
picked up my spirits with thoughts of major runs on Sunday on 10 and 15 meters
into Europe.  Afterall, Friday night and Saturday morning were the pits.  I
wasn't having fun and when it's not fun, there little point in playing.  But I
hung in there and as condx got better, I started having fun again.  But it was
it too late to salvage the score.  The damage was already done.

I'll never go Assisted again in this contest.  It took away from my
concentration and my lack of experience using the cluster in a major contest
hurt me.  I was chasing stuff I shouldn't have been even looking for.

I couldn't get any good runs going.  So very rarely did I CQ on both radios at
the same time.  I had good success at hunt & pounce.  The newly acquired PC I'd
tested in SARTG was so sluggish I couldn't stand it and after a few hours I
stopped the contest and changed it out to my old machine on the A radio.

When I went to 80 Friday night the network kept disconnecting between the two
PC's due to RFI.  I had changed my old 10base T hub out a few weeks earlier with
a new 100base T unit.  So I had to stop and replace the new hub with the old
hub.

A line of thunderstorms came rolling through about an hour before the contest. 
The bands were so noisy it hurt my ears.  40 & 80 were practically useless but I
continued on, hoping for a good EU/JA run on 20 just past EU sunrise.  Well that
never happened either.

Saturday morning when I woke up there were no signals on 20 meters.  But 40 and
80 had quieted down and there were a fair amount of stateside signals to work. 
20 never did open Saturday or Sunday morning.  I saw spots coming from the East
Coast for EU on 15 meters almost 2 hours before I even heard a signal on that
band.  This was discouraging.  Finally 15 opened and it was OK.  Good signals
from EU.  No great runs, but it was the best band.  10 was pathetic Saturday. 
15 got better toward Saturday afternoon and evening and then the propagation
numbers came out confirming the bands were better.

40 & 80 were OK Saturday night but signals from EU on 40 were not very strong. 
The band was crowded but mostly with NA signals.  And I didn't get the EU/JA
opening at 0700Z that night either.  At about this time I was really apathetic
and went into a leisure operating mode.

Sunday morning again spots from the US East Coast for EU on 15 and 10 were
coming out two hours before any signals appeared from here.  I was stuck with
very little to work on 40 & 80 and weak Europeans on 20.

15 was very good into EU on Sunday and 10 was spotty.  There were no great runs
like I had last year.  At this time I don't remember how many Q's I had but I
set a goal of 1800 Q's but even setting the goal didn't motivate me.  When the
NASCAR race came on I shut one radio down, set the other on auto-CQ and watched
the race.  I'm a big Dale Earnhardt Jr. fan and his effort to come back from a
mishap in the pits and being a lap down to almost winning the race even wasn't
enough to motivate me.  So I guess mentally I was shot.  There will be more
contests in the future.  Just because I had a bad one isn't the end of the
world.  I will bounce back!

Congratulations to W2UP on what is surely to be a new NA record and possibly
even the win (I haven't checked scores on 3830 yet).  Even George, W1ZT, had a
tremendous single radio effort.  It goes to show that the East Coast is the
place to be when propagation is marginal for the rest of us.  Congrats to the
crew at K9NS for a great effort - you guys were loud everywhere.

Thanks to everyone who worked me and I apologize to those that called that I
couldn't hear.

73, Don AA5AU


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