[3830] NAQP CW VE7FO Single Op LP

[webform at b4h.net]

                    North American QSO Party, CW

Call: VE7FO
Operator(s): VE7FO
Station: VE7FO

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

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:           
   80:   74    20
   40:   27    12
   20:  190    39
   15:   77    32
   10:   96    35
-------------------
Total:  464   138  Total Score = 64,032

Club: Bavarian Contest Club

Team: 

Comments:

I think this is the first contest that I went into with a plan of which band I
should be on when.  I generated propagation charts for 21 different areas of NA
(VY1JA gets his very own).  Then I created and printed a spreadsheet with mults
down the side and hours across the top.  For each hour for each mult I entered
the bands which had a fair chance of being open.  e.g. in the 2000 hour 10, 15,
20 and 40 were predicted to be open to ND.  So, in the cell at the intersection
of ND and 2000 the numbers 10, 15, 20 and 40 appear.  Of course, with all these
chances at ND I never heard one.

This chart enabled me to know which band I should be on at a particular time to
maximize my mults, particularly the ones with fairly narrow time windows.  When
I worked a mult I put a red line through the band number where I worked it in
the appropriate hour column.  This enabled me to see, for example, when I had
worked all the W4 mults on 10.

I'm trying to become competent at SO1.5R using my old 75A4 to tune for mults on
the R5 vertical while I run with the MkV on the TH3.  So I started running on 10
and listening on 15.  Well, I was getting fairly good rate on 10 so, with my
poor SO1.5R skills, I wasn't able to pay much attention to 15.  

One thing I have never had a good feel for is when to change bands.  This time I
looked at my spreadsheet and when I had most of the mults the predictions said
were available to me on 10 I switched the run radio to 15 at the beginning of
the 2000 hour.  The only predicted available mult I didn't get on 10 was WV. 
Oddly, only 10 mults were predicted for 10 and that was being generous.  I got
35.  Unfortunately, I was having such a good time on 10 that I didn't notice my
spreadsheet yelling at me that 15 is only going to be open to W123 and W4 East
for the first 2 hours.  Still of the 13 mults there I did manage to get 4 on
15.

The predicted vs actual propagation seemed pretty good for 10, 15 and 20 but it
really sucked for 40 and 80.  They were both supposed to be open to almost all
areas of NA with SNR of 20 dB or more in a 250 Hz bandwidth from about 0100Z to
the end at 0600Z.  Hah, 40 was pretty well useless from about 0130Z to the end. 
80 wasn't a whole lot better but did pick up in the last couple of hours.

Near the end, I was running on the sub-Rx VFO on 80 while trying to find someone
to work using the Main Rx.  I have found that having one Rx in one ear and the
other in the other makes it hard for me to get the call the first time when
someone responds to my CQ and I routinely have to hit the "Agn?" button.  I
found today that when listening in mono, i.e. both Rx in both ears, I don't seem
to have this problem.  So I'm calling CQ while tuning around.  That's funny, I'm
tuning the Main Rx and VA7ST seems to be somehow tracking it because, no matter
where I tune, there he is, not talking to anyone - just sending his call.  Oh
no, he's been responding to my last five CQs on my run frequency and I've been
ignoring him.  Sorry, Bud.

Did some CW practice the day before with the TRLog simulator.  Had a 10 minute
rate of 216 from time to time and had a 200 hour.  Too bad I can't do that on
the air.  Still, it really helped.  With reasonable cndx I'm now comfortable at
29 wpm and don't have much trouble with 32 wpm.  

Still learning.  Still a long way to go.  The journey's really fun.

See you in NAQP SSB with my contesting newbies at the mike for part of the time.
 I think I'll let Brenda say "Brenda" this time instead of "Jim".

73 & thanks for the Qs de Jim Smith	VE7FO


Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/