[3830] ARRLDX CW KQ2M SOAB HP

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                    ARRL DX Contest, CW

Call: KQ2M
Operator(s): KQ2M
Station: KQ2M

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: CT
Operating Time (hrs): 7.5

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:    4     4
   80:   63    21
   40:  224    46
   20:  313    71
   15:  215    49
   10:    6     3
-------------------
Total:  825   194  Total Score = 408,150

Club: Frankford Radio Club

Comments:

The last 4 years have been tough to make major contest efforts from my station
due to a variety of serious family and health issues.  In fact, on three prior
occasions I have had to postpone a very much appreciated offer from Alex, W2OX,
to operate from his fine V47KP station.  Fortunately N2NT was able, on short
notice, to go in my place for CQWWCW and do an AMAZING job!

This time I was healthy and VERY psyched up, and mother nature intervened in
the form of a vicious ice storm Tues/Wed with snow plus 2" of sleet and
freezing rain at my QTH.  American Airlines canceled my Wed AM flight and a few
hundred others and the ensuing JFK chaos (you heard about the Jet Blue/American
nightmares) doomed any reasonable chance to get out of the airport.  I should
say that while there was a chance to get to V4 at about 10:30 PM Thursday night
(with a missed connection or two), reason overcame emotion and I decided that an
80+ mile drive through freezing rain in the middle of the night in 10 degrees
and a howling wind, was simply too dangerous in order to be DX. 

K0EJ (V49A) and I exchanged a few emails and Mark promised to drive a local
brew for me.  :-) 

I was very UNmotivated to put my station back together, having torn most of it
apart for the trip, but by Sunday I couldn't help not operating, and all my q's
were made after 1245z - basically one trip through the bands. It seems that
Friday and Saturday nights were where the low band action was, but being "Fresh
Meat" on Sunday was a great help.  Even with my puny signal, I had a 168 hour at
21z on 40 meters!  At one point I was almost overwhelmed by the pileup which
went from 1 or two callers to about 10 loud EU multis calling me simultaneously
on the same freq!  It was VERY COOL to feel like a Caribbean station for about
10 minutes - I could even imagine myself in the chair at V4.  That put a smile
on my face and made the weekend for me!

VP2E/N5AU made a very interesting comment in his writeup about instant packet
pileups and everyone pushing the button and calling on the SAME freq. For about
5 minutes I had great difficulty pulling out a callsign as almost all the
callers were ZEROBEAT EACH OTHER!  It was clear that it was a packet pileup and
the multis who showed up at the same time, were all using the same computer key
which put them on the same freq.  I had to work the "edges" of the pileup until
the din subsided.  The other problem was that with everyone calling on MY freq.,
the EU multis had trouble hearing me through the endless callers, which caused
more chaos and lowered the rate further. 

NOTE TO CALLERS:  ALWAYS call a tiny bit off freq., ESPECIALLY when there is a
big pileup.  By doing so you will reduce the level of qrm on the freq. (you
will hear each other better) and enable the station to pull out calls more
efficiently (and work you faster!).

NOTE TO STATIONS WITH PILEUPS: ALWAYS listen to the "edges" of the pileup,
ESPECIALLY when there is a big pileup.  By doing so you will encourage others
to call OFF freq. and you will be heard better on YOUR freq.  Also, you will be
more likely to hear and work unusual mults who know they won't be heard in the
din and will call you if they know you are listening elsewhere.  In addition,
when ops hear you working stations slightly above and below your freq., they
will MOVE to those places where you worked other stations.  You can "migrate" a
pileup this way while keeping up the rate and still controlling the freq. 

In both this ARRLCW and CQWWCW, I operated with one radio and one amp.  Several
antennas are still not working and/or rotating for the same reasons - 
major lightning damage last August.  I mention this because it has been about
20 years since I operated with only one radio in a major contest.

The most noticeable differences between one and two radios are that there is
less fatigue with one radio, since it is MUCH easier to concentrate on the rate
without expending energy tuning and listening in another place at the same time;
it is MUCH more boring to operate when the rate dies, and you miss a LOT of
mults, especially with brief and unpredictable band openings (like the
Caribbean on 10).  In CQWWCW I missed probably 20 mults on 10 meters because
they were there and gone in 10 minutes while I was on 15 running EU.

You also can not effectively pass mults to another band with only one radio!

With only a few working/rotating antennas at my station, and with the switching
devices out of commission (now fixed but not yet re-installed), I do not have
the ability to use stacks and am often missing the "right" antenna combo at the
"right" time.  This is not a complaint, simply an observaton as to how the
performance, score and rate "dip" when you no longer have the "right tool for
the job" at the moment that you need it.

While most ops are using one radio and probably one or two antennas to make
their scores, I have had a wonderful reminder of how important it is to be able
to use two radios and multiple antennas with stacking possibilities.  While
there are many times that the difference at that moment is minor, the score
differences at other times when you NEED the second radio and the stacking, is
AMAZING!

Of course, it is not about HAVING the equipment, it is about HAVING the
equipment and USING IT EFFECTIVELY at the EXACT TIME that it makes the
difference!  

Many thanks to all the DX ops for the q's and for those that were successful in
taking trips to put mults on the air for this contest!  

73
Bob KQ2M

kq2m at earthlink.net


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