[3830] CQWW SSB KH6LC(N6GQ) SOAB HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB

Call: KH6LC
Operator(s): N6GQ
Station: KH6LC

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: HAWAII
Operating Time (hrs): 

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:   27     6        5
   80:   22     9       10
   40:  694    28       48
   20: 1157    35       97
   15: 1203    32       66
   10:   97    17       20
------------------------------
Total: 3200   127      246  Total Score = 3,493,518

Club: 

Comments:

First, big thanks to Lloyd, KH6LC for allowing me to come out and hang out
again. It's always great to get out to paradise and see good friends and play
ham radio at a great station with great people.

Before the contest started, Lloyd and I had talked about streaming live contest
audio and video. Doing so is trivial with the K3 after doing a little testing at
home before flying out to KH6. We weren't sure what sort of reaction we'd get to
the audio and video, but judging by the initial reactions, people really liked
it. We got lots of great comments and even lots of "Wave to the camera" on the
air comments! As the operator, it was kind of fun to know I was never really
"alone" in the shack - there was always at least a few folks watching and
listening.

My score this year was the lowest I've done so far, but this was just a casual
operation with a few unexpected bumps along the way. I figured making this one
a fun experience rather than shooting for a record was the way to go, given my
work and life issues recently. I slept a lot more than usual this year, and
mostly ignored 40 and the low bands. Starting the contest, I didn't know
whether I should do a single band effort, SOAB or SOAB(A). 

We unfortunately had issues with the main 80M antenna, and low band noise was
extreme this year. So I pretty much just showed up briefly on 80 and 160 to get
the easy "local" mults (and work K7SS QRP on 160 - way to go Danny!). That left
10/15/20/40 to make up the rest. We had a surprising opening on 10 with a few
openings to the mainland, Central/South America and Oceana/Asia. 40 was nicer
than previous years due to the relative lack of broadcast signals and expanded
band segments. 20 was amazing - signal strength, short and long path openings,
and an amazing cross section of juicy mults all over the place. European
signals on 20M Saturday and Sunday mornings were incredible, with S9+ being the
norm.  15 took the show though, with not only European signals and QSO's out to
the Pacific, but also a fantastically cool long path opening from about
midnight to 2AM localtime. Almost each QSO was met with "KH6? Really? Zone
31?". Congrats to KC1XX, K3LR, WE3C, K1DG, AO8A, and NE3F for their loud long
path sigs, they stood out. 

About the same time that 15 was getting interesting, 20 was also open, with a
great skew path opening to Europe, and regular short path (FB!) sigs from all
over Asia pretty much all night long - even though I ended up just listening
most of the time when others were busy running on other bands.  I avoided the
QRM and learned a bit more about propagation instead :)

Speaking of the long/skew path openings on 15, that was what I found myself
doing most of the time, checking various directions and times for openings due
to the solar activity that was happening over the weekend. I spent the rest of
the time doing a lot of CQ'ing, looking for mults, and playing with the new DVR
in the K3. 

Congrats to the other KH6's, especially Fred, KH7Y, for a fantastic 15M score.
There was a good deal of activity from here this weekend, so hopefully everyone
that needed the double mult got it.

Thanks to everyone for your QSOs, patience, and well wishes.

Jeff N6GQ


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