[3830] Rus DX W4AN(K4BAI) SO CW HP

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                    Russian DX Contest

Call: W4AN
Operator(s): K4BAI
Station: W8JI

Class: SO CW HP
QTH: GA/USA
Operating Time (hrs): 24.0

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Countries  Oblasts
----------------------------------------
  160:    50    0        10         0
   80:    72    0        25         0
   40:   402    0        54        18
   20:   471    0        58        33
   15:    35    0        18         0
   10:     5              3         0
----------------------------------------
Total:  1035    0       168        51  Total Score = 975,426

Club: South East Contest Club

Comments:

FT100MP, Mark V, AL1200, 1.5 KW, monoband beams 40-10, dipole for 160, vertical
or dipole for 80.  Thanks to W8JI and WW4LL for the chance to operate at the
W8JI contest station and to Tom and his XYL for their hospitality.  This was
intended to be a very serious CW only effort in the General Class bands in an
effort to get some points for WRTC qualification.  However, those of you who
have seen the news know that we had severe thunderstorms and some tornados in
the immediate vicinity.  Fortunately, there was no damage at the station except
for one rotator that had its limit exceeded when I forgot to set the brake and
the wind blew it past its limit before I looked up and saw the rotator control
reading where it should not have been.  This resulted in the second set of
monobanders for 10, 15, and 20 being fixed at about 325 degrees for the
remainder of the contest.  This was not a bad direction and didn't hurt the
contest effort much as the main set of monobanders was usually on Europe and
was still fully rotary.  Very sorry to have caused Tom, W8JI, trouble to tear
out the rotator and fix the problem at some time in the future.  Otherwise, the
station performed flawlessly.  Unfortunately, the static from the nearly
thunderstorms was significant and disabling for much of the weekend and I was
unable to pull out many calls under the QRN.  Very sorry for being somewhat of
an "alligator," but I was trying every trick I knew to get calls and, even
harder, QSO numbers from under the noise.  I did have a set of Tom's RX
antennas to use after the first ten hours or so and they did help immensely on
the lower bands.  

10M was open only to South America (and to KU8E for the US mult).  15 had a
short opening to Europe about 13-15Z, but only the strongest stations were
workable.  I hear Eu station calling and working the strong ones, but none
answered my CQs.  There were good openings to parts of the US and Canada as
well as to KH6 on 15.  20M seemed open to most of the world for most of the
daylight hours, but Saturday signals from European and Western Asia were puny. 
For the last 45 minutes of the contest on Sunday morning, the signals were
significantly stronger.  40M was pretty good to most of the world including
some UA9s and western Asia as well as a few JAs in the morning.  80M was, of
course, very noisy, but I was able to work the stronger Eu stations with little
problem.  I got virtually no DX responses to CQs on 80.  160M was even noisier,
but was very pleased to work S59A, EA8AH, F8DBF, F5JRU, G4A (sorry I forget
that familiar call right now) and two KH6s on 160 as well as this hemisphere. 
Thanks to all for the QSOs and, again, apologies to those that I couldn't pull
out.  I was SO1R and anticipate in advance how much SO2R would have helped
since I never had very high rates in answers to CQs.  73, John, K4BAI.


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