[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): 43.5
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:   84    54
   80:  539    72
   40: 1099    95
   20: 1470    95
   15:   40    26
   10:    0     0
-------------------
Total: 3232   342  Total Score = 3,297,564

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments:

Congrats to the top scorers so far, including K5ZD (W1UE), AA1K, and K1ZZ. I'm
guessing VY1ZM was SOAB HP, but not sure. If so, I bet Jeff (if it was him)
will be on top: I heard 'ZM everywhere, CQing and moving mults like crazy. The
low bands were so good here they must have been spectacular on PEI. Also heard
K3CR a lot, but thought Alex had left the USA after getting his degree. Who was
there?

Much better score than I expected, being sick all weekend. This deep chest cold
isn't what you want to have when you're not going to sleep for two days. Several
times I thought I might be doing myself serious physical harm. The coughing
spasms got so bad my ribs hurt. My wife had the same thing. It's one of those
new Class 3 cold viruses that buries deep in the lungs and stays there for
about three weeks. I'm in about week two. Awful. But to my amazement, I did
43.5 hours of contesting.  After a few hours, I remember thinking, "I can't do
this." I seriously considered quitting, but I think the reason I kept at it was
getting off to a very good start running 40, which hasn't happened for a really
long time. The contacts just kept piling up the first night and all through the
first day. I couldn't believe how good the conditions were. A good start usually
means a good score, and that's powerful motivation. Very hard to leave when that
happens. The other motivation was having bailed out of CQWW CW early due to
rotator problems -- learned a tough lesson from that and just couldn't see
wimping out on the two biggest CW contests of the year!

Not sure being sick made all that much difference, as results seem to be about
the same as last year for everyone, plus 25 percent for better propagation.
Nice conditions for the supposed bottom of the sunspot cycle. It goes to show
you that all it takes is a few more spots and quiet geomagnetic conditions.
Lots of Asiatic Russians and JAs, which is always a good sign. How good were
conditions? Well, inspired by N1UR's report, I went back and consulted my
contest archives. My QSO totals on each band from 160-20 were all personal
bests since I started serious contesting about 11 years ago -- not just for
ARRL DX, but for any contest. My mult totals on those bands were personal bests
as well, except one year when I had one more mult on 80 and another year where I
had two more on 20. My total Qs were the second highest in my contest career,
only topped by 3440 at the top of the cycle in 2000 CQ WW CW. I've never broken
3000 in ARRL DX before. So yeah, conditions were good. I also agree with N1UR
that the ever-increasing commitment of Europeans to contesting has increased
our scores and made the game much more fun and exciting.  With all those
personal bests, I'd like to think my operating is getting better, but the
scores indicate that everyone benefited from improved conditions and
participation.

Band-by-band:

Had a great time on the low bands, but never got a run going on 160. Need a
better transmit antenna for that. Also, didn't think to try CQing at sunrise or
sunset. Got the mults, though. 80 was steady run for me, too, with the rate
meter sometimes getting over 150. Probably the best I've ever seen on that
band. Not bad for a single trapped vee @90' for 160 and 80 (my delta loop on 80
hasn't been doing as well since I restrung it, and it resonates a lot higher in
the band than before.) 

40 was incredible, with over 1000 contacts. First contest in a long time when I
was able to run over 100 in the opening hour. Reminded me of the good old days
when we had sunspots and you had to choose between running 20 or 40 the first
hour (answer for W1: 40.) Very happy with the 2-el Cal-Av. Much better than the
40-2CD. I felt loud all weekend.

The SteppIR stack works great on 20. The run on Saturday AM was unbelievable --
almost couldn't handle the initial pileups. Just a wall of noise. Got some help
by adjusting the K3 AGC slope, but there's only so much the rig can do when
multiple stations at the same signal strength and pitch call at the same time.
The rate meter went over 200 a few time, but mostly held at 186-190 or so. Had
a 175 hour, which is good for me.

Once again 15 was my downfall. Only 26 mults. I checked the band often but just
didn't hear anything. Got a few EU and some South on Saturday, then practically
nothing on Sunday -- just a bunch of LUs. Sounded like 10m when it's not open.
Had zero on 10, not even ground wave to W1. I'd claim high lattitude woes
again, but N1UR did a lot better on 15 mults than I did, and even had a couple
of Qs on 10. You'd think 4/4/4 would be pretty good on 15 and 10. Do I live in
a black hole for the high bands? I'll have a better idea when the sunspots come
back. Meanwhile, I'm thinking that I'm still spending too much time running 20
and not checking those bands enough. Just can't do much with the second radio
when the rate meter is over 150 on the run radio. This is different than it was
back at the top of the cycle: the rate on 20 was high back then, but not super
high. I had enough time to check and work the second radio back then. Now I
need to figure out how to do that when the rate is a lot higher. 

Had some serious QRN during a snowstorm on Sunday afternoon. It was strange --
no problems at all earlier in the afternoon, when it started snowing, but by
late afternoon the snow was heavier and the QRN shot up. The Cal-Av is DC
grounded, which is supposed to dissipate the static. Normally, it's a very
quiet antenna, but not this time. Luckily, my new switching setup allows me to
use my 40m 4-square as an RX antenna. Otherwise I'm not sure I could have
copied the weak stations (all that was left on that band!) Would have thought
the SteppIRs would do pretty well with snow static, too, with the copper strips
being inside fiberglass tubes, but they had a lot of noise on 20 as well. Only
way I made it through the last part of the contest on 20 was because the K3
noise reduction works very well. That snow static thing was odd -- I'm
wondering if it really was static, or just bad atmospheric conditions.

All the equipment and antennas worked well, though there was one oddity: From
the start, I was getting a loud buzzing and thumping in my headphones on
transmit (semi-breakin, not QSK.) Couldn't remember hearing that from the K3
before, and thought maybe I'd messed up a mod to the audio board designed to
minimize RFI. The noise was annoying, but I just didn't have time to check it
out. About halfway through the contest, I did some transmitting on the new
second K3 with both headphones on that radio. No noise. Hmmm. I did the same
mod to that radio. Eventually, I realized that I had inadvertently reintroduced
a headphone ground loop that exists in the W5XD+ keyer. Several years ago I got
rid of it by putting an audio isolation transformer on one of the radios, but
then pulled that transformer a couple of weeks ago to correct a mic problem
(another story.) I had forgotten why that transformer was where it was! Anyway,
I put the transformer back and the problem disappeared. Probably lost less than
15 minutes over that one, which was a lot less costly than the 24 hours of
thumping in my cold-ridden head.

Speaking of the K3s, gotta say that in SO2R contesting there's only thing
better than owning a K3: owning two of them. I've used several combinations of
radios for SO2R here: TS-950/FT-990, FT-1000MP/FT-990, FT-1000MP/FT-1000D,
Orion/FT-1000D, K3/Orion, and finally K3/K3. This is most pleasant SO2R setup
I've had yet. The K3 receiver is superb and the radio is really fun to use.
Everything works really well. Diversity reception on 160/80/40 was an amazing
help, especially when signals started fading the second day. And here's a
bonus: more desk space!

For the first time in a long time, I was really happy with my station in this
contest. Not that I won't keep tweaking it, and better antennas for 80 and 160
are surely in my future, but this weekend I saw how well the existing antennas
and equipment can play. 15 and 10 are still a story to tell, but I'm optimistic
about using the SteppIR stack on those bands when the sunspots come back.

Now the primary mission is to improve my operating skills. I keep saying I'll
practice more, but something always gets in the way. Time to get serious.

I'll skip the customary rants about operating practices and just say to all the
ops who plopped down on my frequency without listening and without asking if the
frequency was in use, and who blasted my ears with S9+ signals then pretended
not to hear me when I asked them to move, and some of whom refused to move
under any circumstances, and some of whom claimed the frequency was theirs when
I had been there for an hour or more (or, in one case, for 10 minutes and 20
QSOs): This, gentlemen, is not how to play the game. You know who you are and
you ought to be ashamed of yourselves. We all make mistakes and start calling
when someone was on the frequency and was too busy trying to copy a weak
station to say "YES". But you really do have to ask, and you really do have to
listen for a response with your filters wider than 100 Hz, and you really do
have to go when they come back and ask you to move. Thank you, and now back to
our regular programming...

73, Dick WC1M (see below for station details)

Antennas:

160M  -  trapped vee @90'
 80M  -  delta loop @75, trapped vee @90'
 40M  -  Cal-Av 2D-40A @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:   Cal-AV 2D-40A, 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 hung from a tree

dual 580' beverage aimed 20/220 degrees

Equipment:

Elecraft K3 + LP-PAN + CW Skimmer + Alpha 87A, Elecraft K3 + 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.


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