[3830] CQ160 SSB NK7U Multi-Op HP
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Sun Mar 1 19:31:17 PST 2009
CQ 160-Meter Contest, SSB
Call: NK7U
Operator(s): NK7U, K7ZO
Station: NK7U
Class: Multi-Op HP
QTH: Oregon
Operating Time (hrs): 29
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 859 State/Prov = 56 Countries = 16 Total Score = 146,160
Club:
Comments:
At some point during CQ 160 SSB you ask yourself -- “Why am I doing this? Here
I am staying up all night listening to 59++ noise, giant static crashes, and
trying to pull out endless stations right at the noise level only to achieve 20
QSO’s/hour.†But we do it and when it is over we think of it as more of an
accomplishment, like completing a long hike in the mountains, that we think of
it as outright fun.
We did a multi-op at NK7U for the first time since 1997 when we won the Zone 3
multi-op plaque. Winning this was again the goal for our operation in 2009.
Joe’s array of 4 sloping half wave dipoles of a 150’ tower seem to play
very well. He has already turned in some great scores in the ARRL 160 and CQ
160 CW contests.
The contest starts at 2PM local time in Oregon so we don’t expect much early
on. Local sunset is 01:40Z or so. Our first QSO was not until 22:48Z and then
there seemed to be a nice gathering of Pacific Northwest stations who were all
working each other as we waited for the band to open up to the east. By 01:00Z
we only had 52 QSO’s but had all the west coast mults taken care of. ND was
in the log on QSO # 7 when W0ZTL called in. That was nice. And between the two,
SD was the harder catch this year. We had 3 SD’s while we had 5 ND’s in the
log when the contest was over. The first of 12 MT’s called in at 23:16 with
KS7T. Great participation this year from MT. It actually took until 00:15Z for
us to work our first CA station.
Meanwhile the band was starting to open to the east. The first stations from
the east were heard about 23:40Z with WB9Z and WE3C leading the way. We worked
W7IZL in NE at 23:50Z , N0BJ in KS at 01:39Z, but didn’t make our first
“east of the Mississippi†QSO until K8PO in ME went in the log at 02:20Z.
The band finally “popped†during the 03:00Z hour and we had our three best
hours of the weekend with qso rates of 77, 81, and 97. Stations were calling
in from all points with nice loud signals and the noise levels were reasonable.
This is when contesting is fun. VT was in the log at 03:49Z when KT1J called in.
This was notable in that VT was our last state in our 1997 effort. So, it was
great to check this one off. The question was “Which were going to be the
problem mults this year?†More on this later. We also started getting some DX
into the log. We got ZF2AM at 03:36Z and C6ANM called in at 04:28Z -- despite
our best efforts to log his as W6ANM he finally convinced us that C6 was a more
interesting prefix to log. The first of 5 XE’s were logged at 05:13Z when
XE2ZTP was nice enough to give us a call. The rest of the first night fell into
the usual grind of 20-30 Q’s/hour until dawn. On the DX front we did get
KP4KE, KV4FZ, CM6RCR, HI3TEJ, FM5CD, several KL7’s, both UA0CW & RW0CF, and
right at our dawn BV1EK in the log by dawn. The last three called us. The BV1EK
QSO was a real treat.
We ended the first night with 613 Q’s and 63 mults. Looking at the mults the
problem childs were now clear. We were missing DC and KH6 from stateside and a
huge chunk of VE -- all of the “VE1†mults, VE2, VE5, and YT, NWT, and NU.
We were happy though this was ahead of our 1997 effort when after the first
night we were at 544X60.
During the day, after a short nap, we played around in the NAQP RTTY contest
like I think many other stations did. This was the first ever RTTY contest
entered by NK7U. We will be back.
The second night started slow which was certainly a sign of things to come. Our
first Q was not until 23:37Z -- almost an hour later than the first night. It
took us three hours of operating to accumulate 20 more QSO’s. Oh is this
painful! Again, it takes us until 02:25Z to make a QSO east of the Mississippi
when K9UW in WI enters the log. This was about the same as the first night.
However, it is not until 03:38Z when we truly reach the East Coast when we work
N2LC in NY. We actually worked EA8AH before we worked the east coast as we got
through to them at 02:47Z. And, our next east coast QSO was not until almost an
hour later when K3VOA in DC was finally worked, checking off one of the pesky
missing mults. About this time we also worked our single VE5 of the weekend and
also caught P40A in the clear for a good mult. But, we were really having a hard
time getting all the way to the east coast. It could be the storms along the
coast we just causing much higher noise levels than on the first night. During
the 0600Z hour things seems to open up a bit and we had our best hour of the
second night, a whopping 29 QSO’s. We also did work VE9CEH and VE2UMS for a
couple more mults. And, amazingly, NK7U logged CT3DZ and CT3DL when they called
us for probably our two best QSO’s of the weekend. This hour though was
followed up with a 0700Z hour with only 7 QSO and the remainder of the contest
was just a real grind. In the 8 hours from 0700-1500 we make a total of 108
QSO’s for an average of 13/hour. We do manage a couple more mults by working
HC2AQ and finally complete all the US mults when KH7X gives us a call at
09:12Z.
When we pulled the plug in the morning we ended up with 859 QSO’s, 56 section
mults and 16 DX mults for our claimed score of 146,160. Of our QSO’s we had 80
5-pointers and 9 10-pointers. This is amazingly close to our 1997 operation as
summarized below.
Hours Score Q's Points Sections DX
97 ~34 151,656 897 2,136 56 15
09 ~29 146,160 859 2,030 56 16
(2nd in Zone 3)
Difference -4% -4%% -5% --- +6%
We also had a seemingly high number of dupes in the log at 69 -- basically one
in 12 QSO’s was a dupe. We just log people every time they call. It is easier
than having a discussion with them on why they are calling again and who knows
we might not be in their log. But, this just seems high to us. I saw a couple
other notes from others saying dupes seemed high. I can imagine casual
operators just tuning around and giving a call to the loud stations they hear.
And, NK7U is loud. So, we probably attract these guys. But, a Q is a Q and it
is not like they were slowing down our running rate.
Thanks everyone for the QSOs and see you in future contests. Various numbers
follow.
Scott/K7ZO
===============
QSO/Sec+Dx by hour and band
Hour 160 Total Cumm
D1-2200Z 10/6 10/6 10/6
D1-2300Z 19/8 19/8 29/14
D2-0000Z 22/2 22/2 51/16
D2-0100Z 29/2 29/2 80/18
D2-0200Z 37/7 37/7 117/25
D2-0300Z 77/16 77/16 194/41
D2-0400Z 81/6 81/6 275/47
D2-0500Z 97/5 97/5 372/52
D2-0600Z 47/1 47/1 419/53
D2-0700Z 27/3 27/3 446/56
D2-0800Z 33/4 33/4 479/60
D2-0900Z 20/1 20/1 499/61
D2-1000Z 32/1 32/1 531/62
D2-1100Z 41/0 41/0 572/62
D2-1200Z 23/0 23/0 595/62
D2-1300Z 11/0 11/0 606/62
D2-1400Z 7/1 7/1 613/63
D2-1500Z - 0/0 613/63
D2-1600Z --+-- 0/0 613/63
D2-1700Z - 0/0 613/63
D2-1800Z - 0/0 613/63
D2-1900Z - 0/0 613/63
D2-2000Z - 0/0 613/63
D2-2100Z - 0/0 613/63
D2-2200Z - 0/0 613/63
D2-2300Z 3/0 3/0 616/63
D3-0000Z 2/0 2/0 618/63
D3-0100Z 15/0 15/0 633/63
D3-0200Z 22/1 22/1 655/64
D3-0300Z 25/1 25/1 680/65
D3-0400Z 29/1 29/1 709/66
D3-0500Z 13/1 13/1 722/67
D3-0600Z 29/3 29/3 751/70
D3-0700Z 7/0 7/0 758/70
D3-0800Z 20/1 20/1 778/71
D3-0900Z 21/1 21/1 799/72
D3-1000Z 9/0 9/0 808/72
D3-1100Z 19/0 19/0 827/72
D3-1200Z 21/0 21/0 848/72
D3-1300Z 5/0 5/0 853/72
D3-1400Z 6/0 6/0 859/72
Total: 859/72
160 Total
BV 1 1
C6 1 1
CM 1 1
CT3 2 2
EA8 1 1
FM 1 1
HC 1 1
HI 1 1
K 770 770
KH6 1 1
KL 8 8
KP2 1 1
KP4 2 2
P4 1 1
UA9 2 2
VE 59 59
XE 5 5
ZF 1 1
QTH QSO Count
CA 103
WA 55
OH 50
OR 37
AZ 35
ON 28
MN 27
PA 27
CO 26
IL 25
MI 23
TX 23
VA 23
MD 18
NY 18
WI 18
TN 16
GA 15
NC 15
BC 13
FL 13
NJ 13
NV 13
AB 12
MT 12
NH 12
NM 12
UT 12
AL 11
MA 11
ID 10
IN 10
IA 9
WY 9
1 8 Alaska
8 8 Various Carib stations
KS 8
NE 7
MO 6
6 5 Mexico
ND 5
AR 4
CT 4
KY 4
LA 4
RI 4
SC 4
VT 4
33 3 the two CT3's and EA8
MB 3
ME 3
SD 3
WV 3
19 2 UA0CW & RW0CF
MS 2
OK 2
10 1 HC2AQ
24 1 BV1EK
31 1 KH7X
9 1 P40A
DC 1
DE 1
NB 1
QC 1
SK 1
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