[3830] ARRLDX CW YS4M(K9GY) SOAB LP

[webform at b4h.net]

                    ARRL DX Contest, CW

Call: YS4M
Operator(s): K9GY
Station: YS4RR

Class: SOAB LP
QTH: EK53JK
Operating Time (hrs): 36

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:  212    46
   80:  657    57
   40:  779    55
   20:  528    55
   15:  308    43
   10:   96    10
-------------------
Total: 2580   266  Total Score = 2,058,840

Club: Society of Midwest Contesters

Comments:

Seemed like God was telling me not to do this contest from the DX side this
year? Initial plans were for Guatemala but that fell through. Lucky enough to
be able to return to Cangrejera Beach in El Salvador. Then my father ended up
in hospice...so had some hurdles in order to make this happen. Happy to miss
the COLD Chicago weather. The weather was 85-90+ and sunny. Radio room was
less
than 300 feet from beach. 

The pre-contest sleep strategy (3 hr nap) fell apart a little. That was a bad
sign of things to come during the contest. The first 20 min nap was at 10z and
went well. Then I went down for another 20 min at 12z which turned into a 2 hr
nap because I either didn't hear the alarm or goofed up in setting it. All in
all ended up with about 7.5 hrs sleep and another 4.5 hours of
non-sleep/non-QSO time. Even if I had maintained the 71/hr rate over those 12
hrs it would of moved me up to maybe 4th place in the standing. Looks like
Aruba was the place to be this year for SOAB-LP...congrats to K2LE, WJ2O,
N4RR,
W6PH, and G3TBK.  When the contest ends and you're not tired you know you got
too much sleep during the contest, argh! 

Low bands first night were good. Worked 1k Q's by 12z. The next three 12 hour
blocks were 453, 518, 561...so at least I was fairly consistent. 

Finally have some bandpass filtering so that I can listen to another band
(mainly 10m) on the FT-817. Even used two 10m filters in series at one time to
reduce the 15m QRM. 

Exciting to have 10m open up and work some 6 banders! NR5M was the first 6
bander. Didn't work GA on 10m, argh! Heard WY5B beacon at 28.223 using 5w and
a
vertical from Biloxi, MS! Very glad I printed out a 10m beacon listing before
leaving Illinois. 
 
Had some non-US/VE trying to be DXers by calling during the contest. 
Nothing like adding to pileup confusion. 

This was the: 
7th contest expedition from DX side (2-C6, 3-YS, 2-YN) 
5th time in Central America (2-YN, 3-YS) 
2nd time DX for ARRL DX CW

Thanks for all the QSOs. 

Best of health to all, 
Eric K9GY 

FT-857D, FT-817 
160m: Inverted V 
80m, 40m, 20m: separate dipoles
15m, 10m: above dipoles with tuner 
Coax runs were minimum 100 feet - sometimes 175 feet!


Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/