[3830] NCCC Sprint K6VVA LP

[Steve Harrison]

At 09:38 PM 12/14/2007 -0800, webform at b4h.net wrote:
>At 03:29 the day before, I rushed in, turned on the rig, and a minute late
>turned the dial around 7040.  Hearing zip squat, I realized I was one day
early
>again.

BTDT, got three T-shirts to prove it, one while in Vermont during which I
still worked THREE guys, all while sitting in the freezing truck wondering
where everybody was  ;o)

>At 03:28 last night, I repeated the above steps only to find only a couple of
>weak (very weak) signals around 7040.  I thought my antenna was still
>disconnected from some testing I had done, but nope, it was hooked up.  

BTDT, have half a dozen T-shirts  ;o(((((((((

>40 meters was the worst I have ever heard this band during an NS.  Normally
>N9RV & W9RE are loud.  I could hardly copy either one (Tnx, Pat, for the
Mult).
> This was not a good sign. I couldn't even connect with local W0YK.  This was
>looking to be my worst NS score ever before 0400 UTC arrived, and I was
tempted
>to shut everything off.

You were louder than W0YK and N6RO both but only heard you once on a
sequence from which I could call  ;o((((((

However, I heard W0YK half a dozen times and N6RO called me twice; so I
think in this case, I just didn't hear you CQ often enough.

>3 Q's in the fist 7 minutes a fun NS was not going to make, so I went to
80m. 
>Gosh it felt GOOD to hear some LOUD West Coast signals.  REAL GOOD :-)

Yer not sposed to feel good bout loud non-multiplier signals; yer sposed to
be on the bands where the mults are desperately searching for YOU
===============8-O

>I QLF'd and for some reason lapsed in thinking that this was a Duo-Bander,
but
>when things got sparse on 80m, I finally QSY's to 160m at 03:57 and found a
>party going on.

Aw shucks.... never did go to 160, even after carefully setting up the
antler tuner, because I kept running across valid Qs on 80 during the last
few mins.

>CONFESSION: With 39 Q's in the bag when 0300 struck, I decided to join the
>N6RO/K7SS 'Rubber Clockers Club' and keep the fun machine going.  So, my
score
>really needs to be whacked back to 39 Q's & 12 Mults, for a mega 468 points
>:-)

There were several of those going on in the SNS. Fortunately, my gray hair
prevents me from naming callsigns  ;o))))))))))  I was astonished how the
bands seemed to open right smack at 0314Z. I remain convinced that someone
in the NCCC working at some "secret" lab in the Santa Clara valley is
purposely manipulaating the sunspot numbers right smack at the end of both
the SNS and NS  ;o\  ;o\  ;o\

>FYI, the next LQP (Locust QSO Party) will be in January - details to spill
>forth soon, including the addition of some mini-Locust 'Secret Swarmers' as
>sources of additional bonus points in what looks to be a duo-bander this
time.

HUH.. sounds really inneresting........  by then, we apparently will have
had 3 or 4 snow or ice storms which will play heck with our wire antlers
fer the lower bands  ;o\  ;o\  ;o\

What killed me, this time, for west coast Qs, was weak signals in general
(N6RO was strongest (but still only Q4, S5 or so), with K6VVA just as
strong but ALWAYS on the wrong sequence), followed by W0YK, who was always
on the wrong sequence for me when I heard him  ;o(((((((((((

It wasn't a matter of digging you out, but catching you after you'd just
worked another strong west coaster; I invariably lost out to a W/76 that I
couldn't even hear.

Steve, K0XP