[3830] ARRLDX CW N1UR SOAB LP

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                    ARRL DX Contest, CW

Call: N1UR
Operator(s): N1UR
Station: N1UR

Class: SOAB LP
QTH: VT
Operating Time (hrs): 41.5
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:   47    31
   80:  216    63
   40:  406    69
   20: 1056    86
   15:  168    52
   10:   13     6
-------------------
Total: 1906   307  Total Score = 1,739,769

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments:

What can I say...seems to be a typical ARRL DX CW story for me.  Some kind of
antenna issue.  This year, it was my 2x6 box going on
the fritz on Friday evening and continuing through the weekend.  It seemed to
selectively pick on certain bands and then go
away.  I have not debugged it yet, but I suspect the 30 inches of snow may have
pulled away the control wire enough to make it flaky.

Anyway, there was no way I was trying to fix it.  Why?  I had gone up to the
ridge top where my antennas are on Thursday to tighten
up a couple of wires after the Nor'Easter that had blown through.  This task,
that normally would have taken 15 mins, took me almost
2 hours due to the 30 inches of Powder on the ground.  The Powder was so light
that even snow shoes didn't work.  On top of that I 
was fighting a head cold during the weekend.

All this being said, the amazing thing is that the most stable position on the
2x6 was 20M, which is where I stayed for A LOT of time.
As I look at my 20M Qs total vs HP stations and even the M/M crowd, I realize
that I had a "career weekend" on 20M in this one.  The 
4/4 here at N1UR really "rocked" in this one.

I had a blast, despite the frustration of the switch problem.  Mults were
really affected, especially on 40, 80, and 160.  I just
couldn't always go to the "right" band for mults so I was forced to "make due"
with what I had access to the time.

I was surprised how bad 40, 80, and 160 were.  40 closed quick to EU soon after
01Z both nights for me.  Also, unlike last year,
40 never opened to EU at there sunrise and beyond.  That made a slow few hours
between 07 - 10Z, especially unable to go to 160 
and 80 when I wanted to.

15M was a challenge.  It was rarely runnable from here, but you could pick off
S & P Qs quite easily.  This had me frequently
going back to running on 20 and S & Ping 15 on radio 2.  Ultimately, this
seemed to be the right thing to do, but the 15M score
suffered badly.  Hard to believe that the best thing to do with an 8el yagi is
S & P, but so it goes in a low cycle.

I was down on Qs and Mults on 40.  This was not a result of the switch issue
but rather conditions here so far north.  Missing the
sunrise openings to EU on both mornings was huge on dropping the Qs.  The 80
and 160 totals being down were definately affected by
my access to those antennas and of course conditions.

I will for sure be working on the switch over the next weekend to be ready for
the SSB contest.

Thanks to everyone for the Qs and the fun!

73

Ed  N1UR


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