[3830] ARRLDX CW VO1HE SOAB HP

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                    ARRL DX Contest, CW

Call: VO1HE
Operator(s): VO1HE
Station: VO1HE

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: The Rock
Operating Time (hrs): 20.5

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:    0     0
   80:   61    33
   40:  129    61
   20:  180    66
   15:   89    47
   10:    0     0
-------------------
Total:  459   207  Total Score = 285,039

Club: East Coast Canada Contest Club

Comments:

Well, another S&P CW contest is in the books and it was good to get back into
the fray after missing several of the contests so far this year.

Equipment issues were minor. I lost my 160 antenna in a wind storm a few weeks
back so that band was out. I think ice has formed in the tubes of my beam and
is prohibiting the elements from extending fully as the SWR on 20M was way out
of character but the other bands seem fine. My amp has had input tuning trouble
on 15Min the past and finally gave up totally. The bandswitch seems wonky so I
gotta fix that now. 10M never opened for me at all. Overall I lost about 40K
from missing 160 and 10 if you look at the number of contacts and mults that I
got last year. 15 was marginal at best. 20 and 40 were very good from here. 80
was OK. On Sunday afternoon, for a good while all I could hear on 20M was US
stations. 

I managed to get a few new ones. Worked ZL and KH6 on 40.

Was it me or did there seem to be less stations active this year? I got 16 on 4
bands, 26 on 3 bands and 47 on 2 bands. From my perspective, a trip from low to
high on each band on Sunday yielded very few additional contacts but lots of
stations I had already worked. I guess I need to start CQing.

Never had many stations get my call wrong this time. I guess the SCP database
is working. Thanks, Randy. Most fixed it before moving on but some didn't. Oh
well.

A few interesting calls showed up. There seemed to be a bit of confusion with
4O1A thinking it was VO1A. VO1A is not issued but I bet I'll be getting a lot
of QSLs for it HI. Working EE5E was a chuckle. That's a lotta dits HI.

...Rant Alert...

I tuned across a loud pileup on 40M early Sunday morning and found it was 9V1YC
trying to call CQ. Never having worked Singapore on 40M before, I figured I'd
have a listen. To say the the stations in the pileup were obnoxious is a gross
understatement. There were several ops that never stopped calling at all; in
fact, they still may be there. I threw my call in the few times I actually
heard the 9V but realized that, even if I was replied to, I'd never be allowed
to hear my report so I started moving up the band. Apparently James had the
same idea as I found him a few kcs up the band. I could still hear the pileup
still going on the original frequency, which made hearing him quite difficult.

Within seconds he was found and the debacle started all over again. I guess he
decided to pack it in and go somewhere else because I never heard him again
after the first few CQs. Still, there were stations calling incessantly for
several minutes with no one giving or getting a report. I still don't have 9V
on 40 CW. Going to have to start getting up earlier in the mornings.

On a related topic... for the love of God, if you're in a pileup and the
station comes back to a VE3 and you're not a VE3... SHUT UP AND WAIT! Stop
calling and calling and calling and calling and calling and calling and calling
and calling and calling and calling, ad nauseum. All that does is slows the
pileup down and makes EVERYONE wait. This applies to DXing as well as
contesting. Give your call a couple times and, if you're not the lucky one,
wait until the QSO is finished and call again. Yes, I've been guilty of this a
few times but I've come to realize that you don't always have to do as the
Romans when in Rome.

And another thing.... all you big time stations out there... give yer call more
than once per hour! Not everyone uses (or trusts) the cluster so you're wasting
everyone's time by assuming that everyone knows your call.

Sorry for the rant but I feel that the level of rudeness is increasing
exponentially and unless we, as the contesting and DXing community, nip it in
the bud, the bands won't be fit to listen to.

Other than that, it was a pretty good weekend. I'm hoping to get on in the 160
contest this coming weekend. Last year my voice gave out. This year, I'm not
going near anyone for a few days.

Thanks for the Qs and CU in the next one. I'll try to calm down by then :)

73 -- Paul VO1HE


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