[3830] CQWW SSB NK7U M/2 HP

[webform at b4h.net]

                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB

Call: NK7U
Operator(s): NK7U, K7ZO, KL9A, K7MK, W7ZRC, N6MJ, KC7RSO, KW7J, N0AX
Station: NK7U

Class: M/2 HP
QTH: Oregon
Operating Time (hrs): 48

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:   24     9       11
   80:  206    24       47
   40:  424    31      101
   20: 1155    40      145
   15: 1306    37      129
   10:  393    27       87
------------------------------
Total: 3508   168      520  Total Score = 6,198,880

Club: 

Comments:

Well that was fun. With the posting pileup dying down I don’t need to repeat the
general comments. We could tell there were going to be some really big scores by
the great conditions we had and monitoring the East Coast spots. I have not seen
the K3LR or VP2E posts yet but from what I have heard – Wow. 

The NK7U effort for CQWW SSB 2004 had some of the classic trappings of our
annual rate bash as well as some new twists. On the classic front, yes we were
putting antennas up right until and a bit after the contest started. At least it
was not snowing like one memorable year when we, well actually Joe, put up a 6
element 20M beam close to midnight in the snow. Those of you that have visited
our web site note we are a bit takeoff angle challenged from JA south to due
south. Over the last year Joe pulled an old trick from his setup 3 QTH’s ago and
designed a 2 high, 2 wide echelon stack for JA on 10 and 15M. The idea is to
give us some great gain at a bit higher takeoff angle than a 4 high stack does.
Over the summer he got the towers up but the 15M antennas sat 90% completed and
on the ground. So, on Friday as the ops showed up we all pitched in and got 2 of
the 5 element 15M beams up to give us a new two stack. By all accounts the
effort paid off as we had good runs on 15M to JA and A/B comparisons with the
existing 6/6 rotating stack, which is more blocked by the hills, showed the new
stack to be ½ to 1 full S unit better – and it still has two antennas to go. It
also should be better during band openings and closings when arrival angles are
low.

This year we assembled a team of great operators who really worked together
well. Those of you who have operated Multi-op know the importance of team
dynamics and getting a gang that can spend 48 hours together in close quarters
is pretty important. This year we had:

* The resident regulars: Joe/NK7U and other Baker City resident Jerry/KW7J. Joe
is happiest in two places. On top of a tower putting up a new antenna and in a
chair during the wee hours of the morning operating 80 and 160. Jerry is a JA
rate master, but this year his hours in the chair were impacted by work
pressures and the fact several years ago he made the fateful decision to get
married on November 1. So in years like this, with the contest weekend on the
30/31st, he has other things to do.
* The Boise regulars: Scott/K7ZO, Jim/K7MK and Rod/W7ZRC. Rod is the jack of all
trades in operating and station design and construction. Rod built from scratch
the hardline connectors needed to bring on line the new 15M JA stack to the
antenna selection matrix. Little did he know when he showed up two hours before
the contest that this was on his To-Do list. Jim was only able to make the first
day of the contest but he also fits, on a relative basis, into our “Youth Line”.
Then there is me who tends to be the organizer and team secretary. I have also
been known to build antennas, haul them into the air, and most of the inside
station design and assembly was my doing.
* The “Youth Line”: Chris/KL9A, Aaron/KC7RSO, and Dan/N6MJ. For the second year
in a row Chris made the trip down from Moscow, ID. He is becoming a regular at
NK7U and has also helped with many of the tower and antenna projects over the
past summer. Chris is an A-1 operator and he is kind enough to operate SSB with
us. I have seen Chris seemingly work a station, send a Gab message to another
operator, and keep an active Instant Message conversation going on at the same
time. Aaron also came in from Moscow for his second contest after his inaugural
experience during ARRL SSB this year. After a summer of coaching by Chris and
some Field Day work Aaron was running JA’s by the end of the weekend. Another
contester has been born! He is also one of the finest Jones Plug solderers we
have ever met and now has lifetime job security at NK7U for this critical role.
Dan came up from LAX for his second NK7U contest, he and Chris did IARU over the
summer. Dan is just one fantastic operator and I tapped him to help me pull out
some of the tough calls on 20M on Sunday when you are down to that layer when
dozens of “100W and an attic dipole” guys are calling. Finally, we were
disappointed that Jon/KL2A did not join us and decided to defect to the K7ZSD
team at the last minute. We are going to have to analyze the score data and
review the exit polls to see how much of this lead to the relative scores
between the two stations. Seriously though Jon is a great guy and op and we hope
to see him at NK7U again.
* The Professor – for the second year in a row we were fortunate enough to have
Ward/N0AX join us from Seattle. He is a wealth of knowledge, after all he did
author Ham Radio for Dummies (available at Amazon and currently their #4,778
best seller), writes the ARRL Contest Rate sheet, is a great story teller, and
can slam them in the log with the best of them. 

When the fun came to an end on Sunday we could do nothing but be amazed at our
efforts. Given where we are in the solar cycle and the fact the sun had no spots
on it a couple weeks before the contest who would have thought we would have a
weekend like this. At one point a couple weeks before the contest we were
talking about going M/M to maximize the fun factor in the NK7U pioneered
“Leisure class M/M” – you know where beer drinking is allowed. But, then as the
week lead up to the contest it was clear conditions would be “not bad” and so we
went M/2 in one last chance to take the W7 M/2 record for probably the next 6
years. We had it in the bag last year until the flare shut us down for couple
hours on Sunday.

>From what we can tell we were quite successful in our quest. Our raw score of
just under 6.2M should easily beat the existing W7DX record of 3.59M and beat
our big in region rivals K7ZSD (4.65M) and W7GG (3.9M). K7ZSD now owes us beer
at Seaside next year. Our effort set many memorable records for CQWW SSB at
NK7U:
* First ever DXCC on 40M
* First ever 40 zone band – on 20M
* Most total mults ever 
* Highest ever QSO, zone and country count on 40
* Highest ever QSO, zone and country count on 20
* Highest ever QSO and country count on 15
* Most QSO’s in any M/S or M/2 effort. And, almost beating our 1992 M/M effort.
We were just a couple hundred short.

This score was such a surprise for us that our pre contest score tracking graph
fell short. We had to extend the top of the chart with a separate piece of paper
to allow us to keep up. We literally “blew the top off” our score projections.
(Photos will be on the NK7U website soon.) And, if we had a 10M opening to
Europe like the East Coast? That is too amazing to even think about!

Looking at our score relative to some others also shows interesting trends.
First, is looking at our score relative to K4JA, which we use as the “standard
candle” for comparison. Over the last three years, since M/2 has existed, our
scores are as follows:

                K4JA   NK7U  NK7U as % of K4JA
       2002    12.1M   3.0M      25% (we were op limited
                                      that year)
       2003    13.0M   3.6M      28%
       2004    13.3M   6.2M      47%

Each year we have closed the gap with K4JA. At this rate we should catch him in
2009/2010. (Well, not really, but it is fun to think of it that way. Plus, if
Paul sells his station we will lose this competitive compare.)

Another compare we can make is with the top M/2 score posted after the contest.
This one looks like this:

         Top Post    NK7U   NK7U as % of top post
  2002  N3RS/12.9M   3.0M        23%
  2003  K4JA/13.0M   3.6M        28%
  2004  K3LR/20.3M?  6.2M        30%

Even in this compare we are still closing though it might take us until 2035 to
catch up. :)

Within a contest there are always dozens of little stories, memorable QSO’s and
the such. Some of our top memories this year were:

* Chris/KL9A continued his tradition of having rare and sought after mults call
him “out of thin air”. In ARRL SSB this year it was YA1RS and YI3DX. This time
it was ST2T and YI9OM, the later on 40M no less! The guy is a mult magnet.
* Also in the mult magnet category is when VQ9OG called K7MK on 15M. This was
our first of two QSO’s with VQ9OG and the much easier of the two. The second was
by K7ZO in the 20M maelstroms when he was taking short lists. You know how hard
it is to keep a run frequency on 20M when you have to stand by for a couple of
minutes wondering if the DX is going to come back to you? Geez.
* K7MK handled the VQ9 QSO with ease and professionalism. The same could not be
said when K7ZO and N6MJ were looking over his shoulder when he worked SM5Q on
15M. Though he clearly said SM5Q it was S5MQ that went into the log. Dan and I
point this out to Jim who edited the QSO, and re-entered it as --- S5MQ. Dan and
I pointed it out again to which Jim stared at us with that classic “Why are you
bugging me” look. He finally figured it out and corrected the call. Thus
avoiding one of those deadly “-B” notations in the UBN report.
* As mentioned earlier NK7U is a bit challenged by some hills toward VK/ZL and
the South Pacific. This makes seemingly easy mults quite a challenge. A new C31
placed to shoot up a canyon to the SW certainly helped, but they are still not
the “chip shots” they should be. Case in point was our ZL mult on 20M. As of
Sunday AM we still did not have one. Then there were 3 of them on the band at
the same time. Aaron/KC7RSO was up to the task and called ZL3TE about 50 times
before making the QSO. Thanks Aaron for the mult.
* As was the subject of some announcement messages on packet Zone 19 was not an
easy one this year. It was our last mult needed for our first ever 40 zone
effort on any band, in this case 20M. We had knocked off 39 Zones sometime
Saturday night and then the quest for Zone 40 began. K7ZO made it his personal
project to put it in our log. When we didn’t work it in the AM opening it came
down to the last few hours. After a couple hours of Cqing RA0LE went into the
log at 2157Z with hoots and hollers from the entire gang.
* Working D4B on 160M from Oregon was certainly a please and make KL9A quite
pleased. D4B was quite loud, 59 or so, but Joe’s antenna on 160M is pretty
basic, just an elevated ¼ wave ground plane. So, when D4B came back to us it was
quite a surprise. This also made D4B a 6 bander –- not bad.
* The short world series this year meant we did not have the dual pleasure of
playing in CQWW and watching a series game or two. This has been a tradition at
NK7U.

Please visit us on the web at www.nk7u.com. This story with pictures will be
available for viewing in the next week or so...

As always thanks everyone for the Q’s and see you next time.

Scott/K7ZO


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