[3830] NAQP RTTY W6YX M/2 LP

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                    North American QSO Party, RTTY

Call: W6YX
Operator(s): K6UFO, W6RK, N7MH, W6LD, N6DE
Station: W6YX

Class: M/2 LP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 12

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
   80:  127    39
   40:  287    57
   20:  296    53
   15:  154    38
   10:    4     1
-------------------
Total:  868   188  Total Score = 163,184

Club: Northern California Contest Club

Team: 

Comments:

Thanks to everyone for all the QSOs and the moves to other bands!

What a difference a year makes.  Last year we had 100 more QSOs and 45 more
mults.  We had 69x25 on 10m last year, and 205x50 on 15m.  We knew 10m would be
marginal, and tried a new strategy.  During our 15m and 20m runs in the first
two hours, we asked at least 50 stations to check 10m at 20Z.  Unfortunately, at
20Z, 10m was dead... dead dead... except for a few local CA QSOs.  Even the
South American CW beacons were inaudible.  Later, a loud K4EA asked us to try
10m, so we did.  We listened for his CQ and never heard it.  We also tried
calling CQ, but that also didn't produce any QSOs.

15m was fun while it lasted.  For us, the band was open to all of the US except
W7.  Strangely, MN was loud for hours on 15m.  Our VE mults included ON, AB, BC,
and PEI (VY2LI).  We also had a fair number of NA DX mults (HI, HR, KP4, PJ7,
and XE).  By 2230Z, 15m had essentially closed to stateside.  After that, we
still made a few DX QSOs with JA, PY, and VR2BG.

20m and 40m were very productive bands for us.  We beat last year's QSO total on
20m, as well as the QSO and mult totals on 40m.  Our best hour on 20m was in the
20Z hour, but we kept making QSOs there until the 1Z hour.  We managed to
contact some JAs in our last hour on the band, and finished with a BY QSO.

With 15 closing early, we were forced to go to 40m by 22:30Z.  That's much
earlier than we would have liked, and experienced the usual: for stations east
of the Rocky Mountains, we heard and called lots of you, but except for some
stations with good ears, we couldn't raise your attention.  K5AM and W7 stations
were loud.  By 23:30Z, east coast stations could consistently hear us, and then
the fun began.  We started to run stateside reasonably well beginning at 0Z.  57
mults on 40m was beyond our expectations.  The only states we missed on 40m were
CT, VT, and HI (we never contacted them on any band).  I was surprised by the
number of unique stations who called us on 40m - stations that we had not
contacted earlier in the contest.

With 20m closed early to stateside, we had to start on 80m at an ungodly early
time - 01:30Z.  Our first QSO was with K5AM at 01:40Z (he was also our first QSO
on 40m).  We worked hard on 80m, where it was a struggle the rest of the
evening.  We experienced high SWR on our 4-square, so we mostly transmitted with
the Inv-Vee.  We heard many of you in the midwest and east coast, and called
some of you for hours, but a few of you just could never hear us.  Many thanks
to those of you who stuck with us and made the QSO!  We didn't have much success
CQing, except for the west coast, so most of our mults came from S&P.  By the
time 80m was getting good for us, it seemed the activity was low.  

When we looked around on 40m in the last hour of the contest, we found some
stations that would be new mults for us on 80m.  After they called CQ multiple
times without any answers, we asked if we could try a QSY to 80m.  Most people
either ignored us or declined.  I'm a bit puzzled at the reluctance when the
stations had no pileups.

I saw more frequency fights and LID name calling in this NAQP RTTY than I
remember in prior runnings.   Maybe it's because everyone was crammed onto 20m
and 40m.  There was a particularly obnoxious case on 40m where we moved to a
frequency for 5 minutes and had worked several stations, when a 599+ SO2R
station tried to drive us away by CQing 200Hz away from us, and continued to
inch closer.  It's hard to understand why this was necessary, as there was
plenty of space to spread out on the band.  We finally gave up and moved to a
frequency just 6kHz away, where we continued a good run.  

Despite the lack of 10m, we had a lot of fun in this contest, and appreciated
all your QSOs and QSYs!

73...
-Dean - N6DE


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