[3830] ARRL 160 K3ZM Single Op HP

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                    ARRL 160-Meter Contest

Call: K3ZM
Operator(s): K3ZM
Station: K3ZM

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: VA
Operating Time (hrs): 30

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 1701  Sections = 75  Countries = 55  Total Score = 572,130

Club: 

Comments:

Worked 23 countries in the first hour!

Total EU QSOs of 323.  But some of these are Dupes, I think.  Perhaps net of
about 300 EU's.  Many EU's called in more than once.

My rates started out lower than last year.  The Mult total jumped fast,
obviously, but I just was not working as many stations.  This continued through
the evening.  I fell below a 100 per hour average after only about 6 hours.  My
prospects looked poor after the first night.  I felt that I just didn't have
enough contacts.  At dawn on Saturday, I had  1,043   43   74.  These totals
undo the CT effect and count KP2 as V.I. instead of a country.  The prior year
I had 67 more QSOs at that point.  I had about the same number of EU's in the
log at that point as last year, probably.  I went to bed at 8AM looking on the
bright side:  that just leaves me with more people to work on the second day. 
And my advantage to EU has come through for me in the past.

I stormed back on the second day!  1830Z found me looking for EU and calling
CQ.  The first answer from EU was G3XRJ at 1936Z.  EU was then booming at
2000Z.  From that point until 0730Z, I worked a steady trickle of EU's.  That's
a 12 hour opening to EU.  Throughout much of the opening, the lesser stations in
EU were quite weak - barely whispers.  Fortunately, the noise is almost
non-existent.  The EU QSO's pulled me through Saturday evening and allowed very
respectable rates.  I was catching up with the prior year (where I made 1,547
contacts) and eventually surpassing it.  By 2200Z I had 1,203.  By 0000Z I was
up to 1,300.  Most of those 100 contacts were EU's.  At one point, all six
callsigns in the CT window were EU's.

The EU calls kept coming in!  But California was not so strong as in 2007.  I
worked many West Coast stations, but the numbers there seemed down from a year
ago.  I had two concerns:  I still needed several sections, and my country
total was no better than the prior year, really.  I had done almost no hunting
for countries.

My QSO count kept climbing, and I realized that I would surpass my score from
2007.  The question was, would it be enough to win.

I missed LAX WY VE8 PR and AK.  I did not work anything besides KH6 in the
Pacific.  No 4X4.  A highlight was being called by ZS on Saturday evening at
his sunrise.  He was loud.

Thanks to the DX stations for calling in and helping us have a fun contest on
our end.  Thanks also to K1AR, K5ZD, W2GD, K1ZM, WW2Y and many, many other
stateside stations who went out of their way to give us QSO's.  Thanks also to
AD4J and K2DM for doing the same.

Peter  K3ZM


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