[3830] ARRL Jan VHF K1TEO Single Op HP

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                    ARRL January VHF Sweepstakes

Call: K1TEO
Operator(s): K1TEO
Station: K1TEO

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: CT
Operating Time (hrs): 27.5

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
    6:  229    50
    2:  382    49
  222:  127    33
  432:  144    30
  903:   54    19
  1.2:   56    20
  2.3:   26    12
  3.4:   12     6
  5.7:    7     5
  10G:    5     4
  24G:           
-------------------
Total: 1042   228  Total Score = 454,404

Club: 

Comments:

Very tough contest this time. Started before hand when I couldn't get my new
motorized tower to crank up. Spent over 7 hours outside Saturday trying to get
the main gear box defrosted in 10 degree temp. Managed to get it partially up 15
minutes before the start. Once I got inside I had a fast start with 106 qso's in
the first hour. But I wasn't able to find any of the rovers I was looking for.
That ended up being a consistent theme throughout the weekend - lot's of rovers
were out but I had great trouble tracking them down. Rovers along with overall
condx are the 2 main variables for contest score and both were way down this
time. With the cold temps (0 degs when I went to sleep on Sunday morning)the
noise levels on 6 and 2 were the worst in  my 16 years of contesting at this
QTH. Noise levels varied between s5 and s9 depending on direction making it
impossible to work the weak ones. I'm sure there were many out there who thought
I was a real alligator. The noise dropped abruptly around 7:30 local time Sunday
night. I actually thought for a moment that my rx had died, hi! It was nice to
be able to hear again for those last few hours.

Activity didn't seem all that good but of course the combination of poor condx
and my noise problem could've been the reason activity seemed low. I had a
little over 100 qso's less than last year. On the plus side we had an Es opening
on 6 to VP9 and FLorida Saturday afternoon, always a nice treat in January.
Total of 20 qso's and 7 new grids on 6 from the opening. Tried wsjt and made
about 10 qso's . Most were pretty easy though it's tough to figure out as a
single op how to balance the time spent on a wsjt sked vs what can be done in
the same time on the bands generally. Anyway, it's a lot of fun and I thank K1JT
for all his efforts to make wsjt possible. It is very exciting when you hear
those meteor bursts come through and anticipate how they will decode.
And,another plus was  my equipment basically worked fine (other than the tower!)
though the noise from Channel 13 in NYC was worse than ever. Have to get a
filter for next time so I can hear to the SW. 

One funny thing happened. I have a new computer in the shack and loaded the
latest version of CT for logging. For some reason it couldn't pull up 432 as a
band. I realized this early on as I was running a station through the bands. I
quickly picked the first band I don't operate on (24ghz - 8 points a shot!) and
logged all 432 qso's there. If you want to see a really big score try it
sometime - think I ended up with well over 600k points, hi! Looking forward to
the warmth of  June, and hope to Cu all then.  Tnx for all the qso's this time.
73, Jeff K1TEO


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