[3830] ARRLDX CW K1RX SOAB HP

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                    ARRL DX Contest, CW

Call: K1RX
Operator(s): K1RX
Station: K1RX

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: NH
Operating Time (hrs): 42.3
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:   91    51
   80:  854    66
   40:  869    74
   20: 1739    98
   15: 1045    82
   10:   16     9
-------------------
Total: 4614   380  Total Score = 5,259,960

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments:

How does one begin here?  Several factors played into this weekend's wild ride. 
First, I really wish I could have done a 48 hour deal (still wonder how KF1V can
do this even with lousy conditions!) because every time I walked away for a
break, there were still plenty of people to work at very high rates.  It is
really tough getting old!  Even after 3 hours of sleep early Sunday AM, I still
ended up acting weird around the key board. I should have just kept going and to
heck with sleep.  

Some equipment failures which obviously affected the total:  Only fixed
antennas on 40 M - 2 el. fixed at EU and 3 el. pointed South.  The rotary 4 el.
had a broken director and sounded terrible so I did not use at all.  Wish I
could joined the action to JA Sunday morning but with these handicaps, I had
already written it off and did that sleep thing then. Sunday at 2 AM, the 40 M
amp blew up and swapped in an older one but never really returned to the band
until Sunday afternoon.  Lower power with the old amp still produced some
excellent rates.  Weird event with 20 M - while transmitting on 20 M to any
direction BUT EU, tremendous wide band noise was being generated and wiped out
all chances of making better use of 160, 40 and 15 for mult hunting.  Something
is loose, broken or ?? and is just wiping out the other station completely -
what a pain!  Maybe the message here is just work EU and don't worry about the
rest of world.

Went to 15 M much earlier than I had even considered on Sat.  Was shocked to
hear loud signals from EU at sunrise - after 130 Q's on 20 M Sat morning, went
to 15 M to join that party.  Came back to 20 around 1600Z and proceeded to see
rates go up to 200+ on the meter so I was caught up (in my mind) within just a
few hours.  The Sunday 15 M time did not seem as good as Saturday.  Thought I
was going to make a big mistake doing so much 15, so early but in the end it
worked out fine.

Few strategic issues too:  my SO2R is pretty basic:  station A covers 80, 20,
10 and Station B covers 160, 40, 15.  Nothing fancy with switching, etc.  With
these incredible conditions, it became very obvious that there were times I
needed to be running on 20 when 10 was open - could not do this; 15 was still
open (VK/JA) and I needed to be on 40 - nope! I must have been thinking
conditions would be as bad as they ever are (problem of being at the bottom of
the cycle for years, one forgets about the good times!)  Maybe time to upgrade
the station! (too many years doing M/M with old gear)

After seeing so many stations in the log multiple times, it became clear that
my goal was to get as many 6, 5 and 4 banders in the log as I could and that
drove alot of operation - when I saw Q numbers getting low on one band, would
then concentrate there to get the numbers up and sure enough, worked many,
many, repeat contacts!  Thanks so much for joining me in the ride - alot of fun
for sure!

I think this weekend came close to the time I operated as VP5RX and made 4800
Q's in CQ WW CW (had a bad flu or something back then too!). This weekend
thankfully I was not sick.

A very special thanks to all around the world that called in - YOU made the
weekend for this operator!

73, Mark, K1RX


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