[3830] ARRL 10 W1TJL SO Mixed LP

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                    ARRL 10-Meter Contest

Call: W1TJL
Operator(s): W1TJL
Station: W1TJL

Class: SO Mixed LP
QTH: Enfield, CT
Operating Time (hrs): 24

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
   CW:   89    30
  SSB:  445    40
-------------------
Total:  534    70  Total Score = 87,220

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments:

ARRL 10 Meter Contest!  Not sure why but this is always one of my favorites.
Along with the 160 Meter contest!  Maybe I just like the extremes... :-)

This year the conditions started out HORRIBLE!  Lots of noise and no signal
strength.  Friday morning I began testing to be sure Murphy was at bay and all
seemed well.  About nightfall the noise level went from a few static crashes to
a constant S5 to S7 level!  The noise blanker helped but was not entirely
effective with it.  I tried both the TS-950SDX with the roofing filter and the
Yaesu FT-2000 and both did a pretty good job of reducing it, but not entirely
gone.  In addition to weak to no signals, this made operating tough.

Saturday morning the noise was gone!  Dead quiet, alas, still no signals. 
Plodded along making friends with the locals and working what I could.  The
$*@&#* noise came back around dusk.  I took a break and went to see if I could
isolate anything but my best guess is that it was emanating from some neighbors
Christmas decorations.

Around 8:30 or 9:00 I began hearing some further distance stations and a bit
after 10:00 we had some great opening into the Midwest, Florida and some areas
of the south.  And the noise again went away!  All the activity died around
midnight or a bit after.  Glad I stayed up as the bulk of my contacts were made
then.

Sunday was quiet until noonish with a few contacts and more locals and then got
a bit of rain static as the front moved in.  But there was an opening to South
America mid afternoon so picked up a couple of multipliers, several stations
who wanted to give me points for the 2nd time in the contest :-) and a bunch of
conversation with the locals who took a break.  As Chet mentioned in his
soapbox, a few of the locals really do get acquainted when we see each other a
few times a year in these contests…  Makes these contests even more fun.

The equipment used was both a Kenwood TS-950SDX and a Yaesu FT-2000, both
barefoot feeding a 2 element spyder quad at about 40 ft.  Used N1MM on my PC to
run the whole thing and got a lot of little tasks done here in the shack between
contacts! 

And one final note that made me smile – my stepson asked me what the computer
was saying as I was transmitting (CQ Contest, CQ Contest, this is W1TJL
Contest).  He and his girlfriend were listening to his TV and I apparently got
into one of the channels.  They were giggling over what they thought I was
saying “Take your socks off, take your socks off….” :-)

So another year of contests done and I’m getting a bit better at it each year
(I hope).  I’m even working some CW and not messing it up too badly!

See you in the next contest!

73, Tom W1TJL


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