[3830] ARRL 160 W8JI(K1TO) Single Op HP

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                    ARRL 160-Meter Contest

Call: W8JI
Operator(s): K1TO
Station: W8JI

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: GA
Operating Time (hrs): 36
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 2053  Sections = 79  Countries = 58  Total Score = 700,618

Club: 

Comments:

WOW!  What a wonderful station that Tom, W8JI has painstakingly assembled!  It
was a pleasure to be able to just step in and reap the benefits of all of Tom's
hard work.  

This operation came together at the very last minute, starting with a casual
phone call 3 days before the test.  I cannot thank Tom enough for rolling out
the red carpet to make it happen.  All I had to do was drive 7 hours and 
bring my favorite paddle and headphones.  

Looked for exotic long-path QSOs at sunset and for Asian grey line DX at
sunrise, but worked nothing of note.  Did work 24 JAs and felt several times
Sunday morning like the band was about to explode with JA callers.  I can
understand that they, like many longer-distance DX stations, save their efforts
for the CQ 160 where they can work everyone for credit 
and not just USA/VE.  

Missed HC2SL, a very good indication that I didn't spend enough time tuning
around.  Also missed ZL.  Best mult was A7 - thanks, Dave!  

Used a Yaesu MP MarkV for xmit and a K3 for rcv most of the time.  Having never
compared them side by side, it was an eye opener at times to see how well the K3
performs, particularly with the diversity rx option deployed.  

Kept a wattmeter in view and ran less than 1500W at all times.  Have to have
faith that everyone else did the same.  

Installed and ran old reliable CT after many unsuccessful tries to get WinTest
fully running with Winkey.

On xmit, the options were a tall vertical and a wire 4-square.  For receive,
there are 2 fields of 8-direction Beverages plus several short vertical arrays.
 The dipole(s) were not available.  

160 is of course the hardest band on which to get significant directivity both
on xmit and receive.  The top tier of the 160 community has certainly assembled
a dazzling array of antennas on FB QTHs and I especially salute those who have
both built and operated their own stations.  

Congratulations to K9DX for a very strong performance that includes a new QSO
record for this contest and to K3ZM for maximizing the DX portion of his effort
while setting a new multiplier record.  (No doubt the overall results would be
different had this been the CQ 160 where DX counts 10 points rather than 5.) 
In the end, I'm happy to have found the happy medium between QSO points and
mults that produced a record score.  

Buried in the scores is the effort of Tree, operating as K7RAT, who beat the
west-of-the-Mississippi record by around the same margin as the overall score
record was broken.  Tree's innovative scoring method using grid squares and
awarding more points for longer distance QSOs in the Stew Perry event would
also produce a different result.  

Thanks to everyone who made the time to get on the air for this one.  It's a
tough stretch to have 6 major contests in an 8-week (normally 7!) period with
the holidays approaching.  

Will be on for the ARRL 10-Meter Contest next weekend, although the line noise
may prohibit a decent effort.

Happy Holidays to all!

Very 73, Dan

                    160      %
North America   CW 1769    84.0
South America   CW    7     0.3
Europe          CW  294    14.0
Asia            CW   27     1.3
Africa          CW    2     0.1
Oceania         CW    8     0.4


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