[3830] ARRLDX SSB K4RO SOAB HP

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                    ARRL DX Contest, SSB

Call: K4RO
Operator(s): K4RO
Station: K4RO

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: TN
Operating Time (hrs): 20

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:   16    14
   80:   52    36
   40:   88    47
   20:  281    71
   15:  212    50
   10:    4     3
-------------------
Total:  653   221  Total Score = 424,320

Club: Tennessee Contest Group

Comments:

I spent much of Thursday and Friday installing a new 550' Beverage at 45
degrees. It was lots of fun to install; I must have fallen down about a 
dozen times in the heavily sloped woods trying to string the wire through
the trees. It seems to hear better than my 310' at 35 degrees, especially
on 160 meters where the difference is most pronounced. I hope it proves
useful in future contests.

I wound up spending much less time operating than I'd hoped. I've been 
working very late at night/early morning, when there are no distractions.
I'm afraid all of these late nights are starting to catch up with me, or 
maybe I was just beat up from falling down in the woods for two days.

The contest was uneventful.  I haven't operated this contest in many years,
and have never even tried it single op before. N0AX had twisted my arm into 
doing the Delta Division writeups for this contest the last several years.
I always felt silly writing about a contest that I didn't even operate. I
figured I should at least get on and participate this year, to have some 
perspective on the contest. Not much to write about, really. I had an RFI
complaint for the first time in 15 years -- another reason I prefer CW.
He's a great neighbor, and let me string the Beverage into his back yard.
I shut down for a few hours each day so he could print some mixes in 
his recording studio.

I noticed a few changes from several years ago.  Most obvious of course
was the sunspot cycle.  I was glad to put a few in the log on 10m just
to avoid the goose eggs. I'm located in the eastern part of CQ zone 4. 
The word about ID'ing may be spreading.  While there are still several
uninformed ops who don't understand how to sign their call effectively,
some of the worst offenders from the past seem to have improved a bit.

The biggest problem still seems to be South America. Likewise with audio.
I wish some of these ops could hear the difference between (for example)
8P1A and some of the other "all knobs at MAX" south-of-the-border stations. 
Tom would be S9+20 with super crisp and clean audio. Easily identified in
5 seconds. Two Khz away would be another station S9+20, but with audio so
distorted that it took 2 minutes just to determine the call sign. Often I 
would just shake my head and move on. Folks, you are NOT helping your score
with "all knobs at MAX." Get with a competent friend and learn to make your
audio sounds good.

Finally, a note about 3830 after the contest.  Was it really necessary
to give us all a bad name by just jumping on top of those poor guys?
There were wide open spaces 5kHz above and below their QSO, where scores
could have been exchanged without conflict. You all sounded like the lids
afterwards, not the poor "pig farmers."  You are not helping contesting by
behaving like self-important lids after the contest is over. 

No wonder we have a bad reputation with some hams. We deserve that bad
reputation when our hall-of-famed leaders feel that they can treat folks 
with little or no respect, even after the contest is over. Being contesters
does not make us superior, no matter what we may believe. Come on guys, 
you can do better than that. A tiny amount of courtesy would have gone 
a long way right then. The contest was over.

Looking forward to the next CW contest.

73

-Kirk  K4RO


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