[3830] ARRL 160 K9YC M/S HP

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                    ARRL 160-Meter Contest

Call: K9YC
Operator(s): K9YC
Station: K9YC

Class: M/S HP
QTH: SCV
Operating Time (hrs): 24.5

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 781  Sections = 76  Countries = 11  Total Score = 143,985

Club: Northern California Contest Club

Comments:

This was single op, single TX, but I used the cluster, so it's officially M/S
class.

This was my best effort yet in a 160M contest. Nearly 80% 
of my time was running (or at least calling CQ), including 
45 minutes beginning around 3am this morning that I can't 
account for. Call it BIC and FAS (falling asleep) time, 
during which Rusty gave me one of a half dozen spots, 
the last around 7 am.  Kept BIC until 7:30 am, and the last 
hour rewarded me with 17 DX Qs and two more mults -- 
RU0LL and DS1REE and a dozen JAs came well after 
sunrise!   I didn't spend much time chasing EU DX -- CT1 
was the only one I could near, and I called him a few times 
-- but I did pick up the easy ones late at night after the 
crowd had thinned out. 

Missed NLI, NNY, NL, NWT, and PR.  Several VO1s were 
spotted during the day, so will be in a bunch of east coast 
and EU logs.  The last NNY I worked in ARRL 160 was 
from Chicago, and he moved to FL in 2006.  I've never 
worked PR in ARRL 160.  

Propagation was pretty good to NA, but only so-so for DX. 
Never heard or saw spots for anything in the South 
Pacific, no VK or ZL, and JAs were much weaker than 
usual. On the other hand, noise levels seemed to be 
down, although I was definitely hearing propagated noise 
at various times -- that is, the accumulated trash of 
thousands of noise generators in peoples homes and 
businesses -- and it limited what I could hear at times. 

One of the things that makes this contest get better each 
year is that more and more K3s are in use. Several times 
while I was running, W6OAT landed within 700 Hz trying to 
grab a  DX mult. I knew he was there (at least 30 over 9), 
but I could easily work through him. Very few dirty signals 
this year. One east coast station sounded like their rig 
was taking off, and a spot for them (a club station) said
they had a spur 2 kHz up. 

73,
Jim K9YC


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