[3830] CQWW CW KN5O SOAB(A) HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: KN5O
Operator(s): KN5O
Station: KN5O

Class: SOAB(A) HP
QTH: LA
Operating Time (hrs): 31.52

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:    0     0        0
   80:  125    17       63
   40:  418    36      117
   20:  480    35      127
   15:   98    23       49
   10:    0     0        0
------------------------------
Total: 1121   111      356  Total Score = 1,468,248

Club: DeltaDX Association

Comments:

I had planned to operate my station as a multi-op this year with the DeltaDX
Association.  But it is a bad time of year in the USA to do this given the
holiday weekend.  However, I actually operated much longer that I thought or
had planned.  

This was my very-first-ever "serious-effort" CQWW CW participation and all
contacts were made S&P.  I had a lot of fun, although the last 4 hours were not
great.  I wasn't feeling too well, having stayed up for almost 48 hours
straight.  At age 57, it's really getting hard to pull those all-nighters
compared to those times during my college days.  

Unfortunately, lots of committments, chores, etc. occurred during the contest
that only allowed me to operate for about 2/3-rds of the time.  Found out way-
too-late that N1MM cannot drive my FT-1000MP with only the CAT cable.  Hmmm,
should have checked that sooner, oh-well. So operated only with the PRO-III.  

I actually had a borrowed K3 side-by-side with the PRO-III (not in a SO2R
configuration).  I was somewhat "underwhelmed" with it, given all the hype over
the specs, etc.  In fairness, I've only played with it for a week, but I found
the receiver (at least to my ears) to be no better in use than the PRO-III
(with filter settings for 200 Hz in the presence of adjacent strong signals). 
I know that the actual test measurements show otherwise, but I did not observe
that (when in use this weekend) to be the case.  Given that, I'm going to wait
to purchase another radio to replace my FT-1000MP until the new ICOM 7600 is
released.

Here in the "RF black hole of South Louisiana," 80M band conditions were awful
Friday night with thunderstorms moving through the area.  Lots of QRN even when
using the Beverages, but even so, they helped a lot.  Never did get the 160M
inverted-L up as planned.  10M was non-existent for me the entire weekend. 
Additionally, 15M conditions were very poor.  But 40M and 20M were supurb, with
many Europeans nearly "pinning the S-meter."

Otherwise things were uneventful except for the occaisional hitting of the
wrong function keys on the keyboard, especially late in the contest when I was
very, very tired.  So thanks to all for the Q's - it was great to put you in my
log.

Rig:       ICOM 756-PRO-III with Collins 30S-1
Antennas:  80M: 2-slopers @ 85ft, 40M: XM-240 @ 87ft, 20M,15M,10M: 5 element
           HyGain monobanders @ 100 ft, 88 ft and 73 ft respectively.
Software:  N1MM, V8.11.1


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