[3830] ARRL 160 NI5T(@N5BG) M/S HP

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                    ARRL 160-Meter Contest

Call: NI5T
Operator(s): N5BG, WA5S, N2IC, K7IA, N5IA
Station: N5BG

Class: M/S HP
QTH: NM   DM52
Operating Time (hrs): 32

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 1354  Sections = 76  Countries = 11  Total Score = 252,561

Club: Virden Contest Club

Comments:

First of all we must echo the report by K5NA when he said............ 

"This year I made more QSOs than ever before with my best score ever, but
still
won't make the top ten. It is a different contest here in the Southwest than
it
is on the East Coast. And that's not a complaint, just a fact of life."

And our location is another 700 miles to the west of Richard, in SW New
Mexico.

Our group put a new callsign on the air, NI5T  It was humorous to us to note
the occasional pause from stations we called on the S&P radio, when apparently
NI5T didn't show up in their SCP.

It was the best first night ever from this location; 1,022 good Q's.  The
continental conditions were excellent.  We produced the highest single clock
hour ever at 114.  The average for the 14 hours was 63/hr.  That is truly
amazing for our location.  The only thing bad about all the 1st night Q's was
there was very little left for the 2nd night.    

The 2nd night the conditions went south about 0400Z.  The band at our location
was filled with QRN no matter what Beverage was selected.  Suddenly there were
very few new stations to be heard.  However, we persevered through the night
and scraped the band clean winding up with an additional 332 good contacts.

I had worked 57 DX countries the previous weekend from this station, doing a
casual single band 160 in CQWWCW.  This weekend only 11 DX countries were
worked.  Only one EU was heard.  G3LET was worked with ease and was heard for
hours on end last weekend.  This weekend Peter was heard 329 w/ QSB for a few
minutes at his sunrise Sunday morning.  That tells it all.

No EU, no AF, and very little Carib, CA and SA.  We did have two ZL's call in
as well as one UA9 and one HL.  Thanks for the mults guys.  Our only point
salvation was the 50 five pointers from our friends in JA land.  Even that path
opening was miniscule until right at our sunrise Sunday morning.  A final
mini-run of 15 additional JA's went into the log between 1402 and 1437.  We
were still running them nearly 20 minutes after old Sol was above the horizon.

We did WAS, all 50 of them, but not in record time.  The holdout this year was
Alaska, where they couldn't get their signals out from under the aurora. 
Kevin, NL7Z finally called us at 1246 Z for the sweep of states.  So, it took
14 hours and 46 minutes to do the deed.  Anyone do it quicker this year?

Sections were a different story.  We never heard PR or those 3 elusive Canadian
areas, NWT, MB and LB.  On the other hand, we worked the most VE stations ever;
a total of 57.  Thanks for all the calls.

Now some stateside stats.  As is normal, the hotbed of Topband contest activity
out west is in the Golden State of Californa.  The 167 Q's from 6-land were a
whopping 13.6 percent of our total K/W contacts.  Thanks guys for putting the
butter on our bread.

The Lone Star State of Texas provided the 2nd highest total of 73. The balance
of the Top Ten were MN=62, OH=56, IL=47, VA=44, CO=43, NY=40, AZ=38, PA=37.

On the other end of the spectrum, single contacts were made with NNY, VI and AK
while only 2 Q's each were made with ND, RI, and NLI.

The new K3 with diversity RX was used in the run position while the venerable
FT1KMP's performed admirably in the hunt positions. The 2nd RX was in
particular useable with a NW Beverage connected to the Aux input and the main
RX listening on a NE Beverage.  Those two priciple directions provide 75-80% of
the contacts from this location near the Mexican border.

Although this particular application is not true diversity for a single signal,
it saves a lot of mechanical wear and tear on the Bevergae selector switch.

Again, thanks to all the stations that made it into the NI5T log and an apology
to those we couldn't copy the 2nd night due to the QRN conditions.  

The same team, with the addition of a couple more hired guns, will be handing
out contacts in the CQ 160 at the end of January.  Look for our dits and dahs.

73 for now de Milt, N5IA


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