[3830] NAQP CW K5NA Single Op LP

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                    North American QSO Party, CW

Call: K5NA
Operator(s): K5NA
Station: K5NA

Class: Single Op LP
QTH: TX
Operating Time (hrs): 10
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:  110    38
   80:  220    42
   40:  278    50
   20:  293    44
   15:   89    31
   10:    4     2
-------------------
Total:  994   207  Total Score = 205,758

Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club

Team: Austin Powers Rustlers

Comments:

I hadn't done the January NAQP CW since 2004. I printed my rate sheet from that
contest to help me know when I should be operating and where. But that was
certainly a waste of time because conditions were dramatically different this
year. In 2004 I had a sum of 418 QSOs and 83 multipliers on 10M and 15M that was
about 40% of my total score. This year I had 93 QSOs and 33 multipliers there
for less then 10% of my total score.

The first hour, while I was trying to make something happen on 10M and 15M, was
my lowest run rate hour of the contest. But after I moved on down to 20M and
below, there always seemed to be an inexhaustable number of QSOs available to
work. I am not sure but I believe that the NAQP is attracting a lot more
activity than it used to.

I tried moving a couple of guys to 10M in the first hour and was turned down
with them saying, "10M is dead". After that I just gave up on trying to move
people because it was too disruptive to my run rate. I did have W8MV answer my
CQ on 10M with a good signal, but no other stations were heard at the time.
Strangely, he had a good signal when he called me. Other than that, I only
worked a couple of local stations on 10M that are in Central Texas.

I did move one station from 80M to 160M near the end of the contest for a
multiplier. But that was easy since it was time for me to go to 160M anyway and
finish out the contest. I know I should have made a bigger effort at moving
multipliers but I was just lazy.

40M was sizzling with a good rate at 4:00PM local time (2200Z) which was a
surprise. So I put in my time early on 40M and spent the last 4 hours of the
contest doing just 80M and 160M. I never made another QSO on 40M after about
7:50PM local (0150Z) because I assumed that the band would go long as it got
later and it was a bother to change bands. I don't think that hurt me much since
80M and 160M were very productive.

As usual it was great fun to do the NAQP and not have to dedicate an entire
weekend to operating. 

73, Richard - K5NA


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