[3830] ARRLDX CW WC1M SOAB HP

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                    ARRL DX Contest, CW

Call: WC1M
Operator(s): WC1M
Station: WC1M

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: NH
Operating Time (hrs): 40
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:   72    44
   80:  446    67
   40:  813    85
   20: 1431    93
   15:   34    23
   10:    0     0
-------------------
Total: 2796   312  Total Score = 2,601,144

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments:

Antennas:

160M  -  trapped vee @90', trapped vee @65'
 80M  -  delta loop @75', trapped vee @90', trapped vee @65'
 40M  -  40-2CD @110', 4-square  
 20M  -  4/4/4 SteppIRs @96'/64'/34' on TICs, C3E @50', 4-el @72'
 15M  -  4/4/4 SteppIRs @96'/64'/34' on TICs, C3E @50', 5-el @50'
 10M  -  4/4/4 SteppIRs @96'/64'/34' on TICs, C3E @50'
 
Tower#1:   Cushcraft 40-2CD, 4-el SteppIRs, 160/80 trapped vee
770-MDP:   Force-12 EF-420
AB-577 #1: Force-12 EF-515
AB-577 #2: Force-12 C3E

Delta loop and trapped vee hung from trees

580' beverage aimed 20-degrees

Equipment:

Orion + Alpha 87A, FT-1000D + Acom 2000A, Writelog, W5XD+ keyer/switcher,
homebrew Windows antenna switching/tuning software ("AntennaMaster"), Hamation
Relay Drivers, TopTen and KK1L SO2R switches, Green Heron and Hy-Gain rotor
controllers, microHam Stack Switch and StackMax.

Congrats to K1KI, K3CR and N2NT for fine scores. AA1K and K1ZZ did very well,
too. It's a pleasure to compete with such great ops -- I heard them doing a
terrific job all weekend, all over the bands. Seems like one of them was always
in a pileup with me or CQing nearby. You can always tell when an op is doing a
quality job, and all of these guys did.

The big problem for me this time was a horrendously busy week before the
contest. All week I was running around trying to do 20 things at once, thinking
that I shouldn't be in that kind of state just before a big contest. My wife
went on a rare out of town trip from Wednesday afternoon through Saturday
night, leaving me to juggle our kids' ridiculously complicated schedules on
Thursday and Friday (we hired a babysitter Friday and Saturday so I could do
the contest.) I was hoping to relax Friday afternoon, but a neighbor backed out
on a play date for my 4-year old son and I lost the free time. I remember
thinking, "I shouldn't be so stressed out before 48-hour single-op effort."

I was so busy that, despite plans, I managed not to get a good night's sleep
any day of the week. Some nights I got only 2-3 hours (good practice for the
contest -- not!) I did manage 6 hours Thursday night, and a 90-minute nap
Friday afternoon just before the contest started, but that wasn't enough. This
resulted more fatigue than usual, and a near-disaster oversleeping on Sunday
morning. I had planned two 90-minute breaks in the wee hours on Saturday and
Sunday. The rate went pretty low by 0800z Saturday, and since I was really
flagging I decide to take an extra hour and sleep until about 1030z to be fresh
for the morning runs. That worked pretty well. I was still tired Sunday morning
(zulu), so I decided to take another 2 1/2 hours from about 0745z to 1015z. I
hoped to take a quick shower and eat a light breakfast, then get back on the
air by 1030z. But I woke up at 1230z, with the alarm clock clutched in my
hands. Evidently, it went off and I grabbed it and shut it off. I think the
body simply insisted that I get more sleep. I don't know why I woke up when I
did, and not a couple of hours later. My unconscious mind probably wanted just
a little more sleep, but also wanted to do well in the contest. Anyway, I
leaped off the couch and after a quick pit stop jumped into the pileups. It's
harder to find a frequency when you start late, of course. The Saturday morning
run got going in earnest about 1120z, so I must have missed a little over an
hour of the peak on Sunday. My best guess is that I lost about 130 Qs, even
considering a higher initial rate from being "fresh meat".

Despite the loss of a key hour, I ended up 180 Qs ahead of last year. Probably
would have been about 300+ had I not overslept. Given that the conditions were
a bit worse than last year, I'm pretty happy with the QSO production. I kept
thinking rate, rate, rate and pounded the second radio for Qs and mults as hard
as I could.

Mult production was another story. I usually suck at mults, but this time was
above and beyond sucky. Despite working the second radio as much as I could, I
fell behind last year's mult count on Friday night. Having had no luck running
40 at the start of the last few contests, I S&Ped that band in the first hour,
picking up about the same number of mults as last year, but not as many Qs. In
retrospect, it would have been better to start on 80. I thought it was too
early, but judging from how well I ran 80 before 0000z on Sunday, the band was
probably runnable. So I think running 80 and S&Ping 40 on the second radio
would have produced more Qs and mults the first hour. I did move to 80 from
0100z-0200z, and had a pretty good run. But I wasn't picking up many mults on
40, which means I probably slacked off on the second radio. I had a great hour
on 160 at 0300z, picking up 25 mults, mostly EU. I think that the most mults
I've picked up in an hour on 160. The rest of the evening was spent going back
and forth between 160, 80 and 40, with relatively low rate. I CQed on 80
mostly, so I ended with under 100 Qs and under 60 mults on 40. I was worried
about that and hoped to pull that band up during the afternoon opening.

The 20m Saturday morning run starting at 1130z was quite good, thanks to my new
stack: 73, 162, 131, 76 (what happened there?), 119, 114, and 117. But 15m
didn't open at all. It was dead as a door nail (what's a door nail, anyway?) I
checked the band frequently with my 5-el monobander at 50 feet, and just to
make sure I scanned it a few times with the stack (switching to the 20m
monobander to hold my run frequency.) The only signals I heard that morning
were KC1XX and K1TTT CQing with no takers. They're both relatively close to me,
so it was ground wave. Nothing from EU, almost nothing south (I did work V31UZ
early, then PT4TUE and XE1MM later in the morning.) I checked 10m, too, but
heard absolutely nothing. By the end of the morning, I was about 60 mults
behind last year, with little hope of catching up. Comparing my rate sheets
from this year and last, about half the difference was poor mult production on
40 and 15, respectively. I think it was mostly bad operating on 40, and bad
propagation on 15.

I moved to 40 at 1900z Saturday, and the rate meter took off again. The 20m
rate dropped off at about 1800z, so I probably should have moved to 40 then.
Still, I had the best sustained run on 40 I've ever had from home: 96, 131,
141, and 97. Wow. My 40-2CD always worked pretty well when I had it at 75 feet
on a tubular tower, but after moving it to 110' on the new tower I haven't been
impressed -- until now. I think conditions on 40 have been so bad during the
past year I haven't seen what the additional height can do. Of course, the real
reason my 40-2CD works so well is that it used to belong to K1KI, who told me
that it had plenty of QSOs left. Sure does. I think Tom said it was #5 or #6
off of Cushcraft's initial production line. I see from Tom's 3830 post that
he's not missing the old CC -- over 1000 Qs on 40 is outstanding!

The second night was tough, alternating 160, 80 and 40, with no real rate to be
had. Mult production was thin, too. This time I don't think it was the op -- I
tuned constantly, sometimes the only way I could get rate, but didn't hear very
many new mults to work. By the end of the second night I was 150 Qs ahead of
last year, but 34 mults behind.

As I said, oversleeping lost me about 130 Qs. Once again, 15 was completely
dead during the Sunday morning run, except for a couple of south mults (PJ4O at
1322z and H7/K9GY at 1520z.) Believe me, I was checking often, with all the 15m
antennas I have. Then at 1645z I finally started hearing loud stations coming
in from the south. It took me about an hour and a half to find 14 new mults on
15. I think I worked only two stations outside of the Caribbean and South
America: an OH who drifted over the pole at about 1645, EA8ZS (always loud
everywhere) and VP6DX (piece of cake.)

10m? Not a chance. Dead band all weekend, and I checked frequently.
 
So, I had only 23 mults on 15, compared with 40-60+ for the best stations in my
category. Those who have read my posts know that I'm always complaining about
what a lousy job I do in mults, and this contest is no different. I also
complain about 10 and 15 being worse here at higher latitude than the
competition. I guess there's corroboration from K1IB, who lives nearby and had
exactly the same mult counts as I did on 10 and 15: 0 and 23. K1DG complained
about 15 in CQ WW CW this past November when he operated from N1LI, which
happens to be at about the same latitude as my QTH. Still, I can only blame
part of my mult deficit on 15m propagation here. It's possible I wasn't
checking the band frequently enough during my big run on 40 Saturday afternoon.
I also didn't try running 40 enough on Friday night, which probably would have
scared up a few more mults on that band. Live and learn.

Aside from learning how to do a better job on mults, and relaxing and getting
more sleep before the contest, I need to work on increasing time in the chair.
I left 8 hours on the table this time. Even though most of those hours were
during low rate times, there's no doubt my QSO and mult totals would have been
better with at least five more hours in the chair.

Not a lot of DX highlights this time, but did get called by 4S7DXG on 40
(twice), several HZ stations on 40 and 20, a couple of VUs, and several HS0
stations (my property falls off in that direction, so I'm pretty loud even off
the side of the beam.) Lots of Russians to work, but precious few UA9/UA0. Got
a small JA run going on 20 late Sunday afternoon, but not a barn-burner
rate-wise. Again, I've got good terrain in that direction and can swing the
whole stack around. 80 was a joy -- so nice being loud enough to run with just
a delta loop and trapped inverted vee. 160 was also quite good, especially the
first night. I've only got a couple of low trapped inverted vees on that band,
but the Beverage does most of the job. I worked everything I could hear with
the Beverage, and the vast majority with only one or two calls (contrast that
with the long pleadings required when we have more sunspots.) Makes me wonder
why I was about 9-10 mults behind the competition. I think it's because I
didn't check 160 often enough during the 0400z-0600z hours Friday night
(Saturday AM zulu), and may have missed some south multipliers by sleeping
through the 0730z-1030z hours.

It's hard to tell, but I thought we had fewer participants this year, at least
judging from the mult locations. That said, there seemed to be more Europeans
than ever during the pileups. I guess that's the phenomenon of everyone being
crammed into fewer open bands. At times it was very challenging to find a spot
to run on 20 and 40. 

Operating habits continue to deteriorate. In large pileups, stations kept
calling me while I was working someone else. Don't they listen? They're only
making it worse on themselves -- it takes longer to work everyone when people
don't listen. I can understand if I was a weak station and they couldn't hear
me call someone else, but this happened when I was literally booming into
Europe. Other bad habits continue to vex me. Sstations should not repeat their
call and/or exchange unless directed. It just wastes time if conditions don't
warrant a repeat. Let the other station ask for a fill. It's particularly
frustrating when QRP stations insist on repeating everything. Some of you don't
realize that I can hear you just fine. And while you're on the subject, it's
never necessary or desirable for you to sign /QRP. It's not important in the
contest and I can tell you're QRP from the power. It just wastes more time.

Other bad habits: Not asking "QRL?" before transmitting, transmitting anyway
when someone says "Yes", setting up shop a hundred hertz away from someone, not
moving when asked, and so forth. I had to shoo people away from my run frequency
pretty often this weekend. A special nod goes to the 20m operator at K5GO, who
plopped down virtually on top of me after I'd been running at high rate for
hours, then refused to move. I continued to CQ, and he CQed right back in my
face, pretending not to hear me. He was at least 40 over S9, so I really don't
think he couldn't hear me. Remarkably, we both worked some stations through the
noise. After a while, I couldn't work anything through his QRM, so I focused
mostly on the second radio. I eventually tired of the game and gave up.
Deliberately pushing someone off a frequency isn't clever competitive
operating, it's just plain rude. 

Now, I'm not saying I haven't made operating mistakes. I've certainly
inadvertently plopped down on someone or moved too close. But I make a point of
listening, then sending "?", then sending "QRL?". I try to find another spot if
I wasn't there first. 

I sometimes screw up calling in pileups, but who doesn't? It's hard to avoid
stepping on someone in a 160 pileup with weak DX, but at least I try not to do
it.

I made one big mistake this time. I was transmitting at 000.5 at one point, and
someone dropped by to tell me to check my VFO, I was outside the band. I replied
that 000.5 is OK by FCC rules (cf the various posts by K1DG on this subject),
only to realize a couple of minutes later that I was really at 000.050! Oops.
Fatigue again. I did find it ironic that the person who scolded me for being
outside the band neglected to ID.

Another inadvertent mistake was a spur coming off my Orion about 1.5 KHz below
my transmit frequency. An 80m op from K1TTT let me know about it after the
contest. I had a similar report from N1EU about a spur on 160 in CQ WW CW, but
we were unable to reproduce the problem. I think it only happens after I've
been CQing for a while. I have a pretty good idea where to look to fix the
problem. If anyone heard a spur from me on bands other than 80 and 160, do let
me know. If I QRMed you, my sincerest apologies.

I had one strange anomaly. Saturday morning I looked down at the Acom remote
control panel and saw that the amp was off (it, and the 87A, are in the
basement below the shack.) I didn't turn the amp off from the panel. Strange. I
powered up the amp again and everything was normal. A few minutes later, I
noticed low power on the run radio external power meter, and saw from the
AlphaRemote software that the 87A was now powered off. Doubly strange. Turned
it back on and everything was fine. That's never, ever happened in the many
years I've owned those amps, and I can't think of anything that would shut them
off like that without leaving a fault status behind (except *maybe* a very
sudden power loss.) It seems impossible that both amps would suffer from the
same problem at almost the same time. All I can think of is that my 4-year old
son got up early, went down to the basement, and turned the amps off because
the blowers were making too much noise for him to hear the cartoons on TV. The
87A has a returning on/off switch, which would leave no evidence, but the 2000A
has a plain toggle switch. If he did it, he must also have turned the 2000A main
power switch back on. He denies turning off the amps, but I didn't ask him until
two days later -- an eternity for a 4-year old.

Other than that, my antennas and station equipment worked extremely well. The
stack is a real killer, and it's such a pleasure to be able to finally have
that kind of antenna at home. It's nice to be able to swing all three antennas
around to break through a pileup, or split the beams, or divide the stack
between the two radios. The old monobanders and small tribander on the tubular
towers are useful as well, mainly for working south and other directions
ancillary to the stack. They also come in handy when I need to switch the stack
to another radio to check a different band. It takes a little time for the
SteppIRs to retune, so I sometimes used the monobanders to keep CQing and hold
the frequency. Towards the end of the contest, I was able to combine the stack
with a monobander and the tribander to listen or spray RF in at least three
directions at once. I could have split the stack to cover even more directions,
but frankly I didn't think to do that. Needless to say, listening in lots of
directions while S&Ping can be very helpful. All that said, I'm still learning
how to use and optimize the new configuration here. This is only my second
contest with the new setup, and I think it will take a while longer to learn
all the things I can do with it and get more fluid in my antenna decisions.

My new PC-controlled antenna switching system worked very well, too, though
there are still a couple of bugs and some improvements to make (returning the
focus to the logger after clicking an antenna button is one.) The software
takes care of all antenna switching through two Hamation Relay Drivers, reads
the stack configuration from a microHam StackMax, tunes each SteppIR in the
stack according to which radio has which antenna(s) and tunes the Acom
amplifier for the correct frequency segment and antenna. It was also used this
weekend by N3RS to select segment on their 80m rotatable dipole, and by N1EU to
tune his Acom amp. I'll eventually post something about it on my website.

Contesting continues to be a great activity for me. There's nothing outside of
family that I enjoy more (a few almost as much.) There's no end to the quest to
improve my operating skills and station. I think the station work is winding
down for a while (except maybe some low-band antenna improvements), so
hopefully I can boost my operating skills enough to make the top five -- or
even win -- from home someday.

CU in the next one.

73, Dick WC1M


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