[3830] WPX SSB VP2E M/S HP

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                    CQWW WPX Contest, SSB

Call: VP2E
Operator(s): N5AU   KC5EA
Station: VP2E

Class: M/S HP
QTH: Anguilla
Operating Time (hrs): 30

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:   59
   80:  117
   40:  161
   20:  873
   15: 2627
   10:  247
------------
Total: 4084  Prefixes = 1160  Total Score = 13,111,480

Club: North Texas Contest Club

Comments:

We didn't CQ too hard on most bands except possibly 15.   We only had two ops,
both of the "old dog" variety which doesn't lend itself well to staying up 48
hours and running as hard as possible.   There were many chores to be done
during the day as well, so staying up all night was not a good option.    

This contest was a great test of the station hardware and computers.   We found
several major problems.  In the Caribbean you can never count on things working
from one contest to another.   The salt water environment always takes its toll.
  This time we lost the rotor under the M2 3L 40.   This is a huge loss as this
antenna is a "beast" (40M3FS-48ft boom-350 lbs), so our only option was to tie
it down (we picked Europe).  It has 40 db nulls on the sides and 25 db off the
back, so we didn't work much in the USA direction and others.   We could hear US
stations 40 and 50 db over S9 using the USA beverage, but it was a "no-go" on
transmit.   We concluded it waan't worth the effort to put up a temporary
transmit antenna just for this contest.

Our computer network just "wouldn't" this weekend.   We lost several of the main
computers before the contest from the creeping crud and were down to older
computers on Windows 98SE; Celeron 400's with 96 meg of ram total.   Not good.  
 We didn't lose any QSO's due to crashes, but we couldn't keep the network up
and working for any great length of time.

Our line noise is on the rise.   This is an on-going battle we seem to be losing
at the moment.   The local power company does not use any "live-line" trucks, so
in order to do even the slightest work on the lines, they have to shut the
entire area down for a couple of hours.    That doesn't go too well with the
local hotel owners and other residents as you can probably imagine, so we can't
do it very often or for very long.   Does anyone know of a used "live-line"
truck we could get cheap?   

We did manage to QSO the space station over the last few days and gave Bill a
new country.   It's hard to image what that huge pile-up on 2M FM must sound
like, especially including the off-frequency effects caused by Doppler. 

See everyone in the 2006 CQ WW.   Let's hope the predictions for a gang-buster
Cycle 24 are correct.


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