[3830] CQ160 SSB K3ZM Single Op HP

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                    CQ 160-Meter Contest, SSB

Call: K3ZM
Operator(s): K3ZM
Station: K3ZM

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: Virginia
Operating Time (hrs): 30

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 1248  State/Prov = 57  Countries = 62  Total Score = 502,768

Club: 

Comments:

Congratulations to brother K2DM, whose QRP score is still at the top of the
claimed scores for ARRL CW.  All three Briggs brothers have won the award for
QRP CW in the ARRL DX Contest.

Speaking of the bros, it is easy to take VY2ZM for granted.  I can think of
about 2,000 things that were missing from this weekend's running of CQ 160
Phone:  contacts with PEI.  I saved 40 minutes of operating time for the very
end of the contest, hoping that Robbie, VY2SS might find me and supply the
needed island multiplier, but he and others were probably watching the hockey
game!

As for me, the story of this contest is that W8JI (the Death Star) and WB9Z
were both off the air.  My buddy Paul, N4PN, was operating from home with his
Pine Tree Inverted Vee, and Jerry was at PJ2T drinking Rum Punches.  This saved
me the embarrassment of making 300-400 fewer QSOs than my competitors.

I left nothing in the chair during this contest.  My QSO and country totals are
personal records.  Many nice multipliers from the Caribbean rim and Central and
South America came my way, including our friends at C6, ZF2AM, PJ2T, TO2T,
HI3TEJ, V48M, 9Y4D, KP2 and KP4, V31, TI5, LU, PY, J7, HK, YV, PY0.  My QTH
provides a great shot to these locations.  Thanks for answering my CQs.

Despite making a total of 168 EU contacts, I feel that I left several dozen out
there.  I did not work France or ON4!  It is quite difficult to run EU in this
contest.

For the record, I never achieved a "quiet" frequency in this contest.  Those
who think it is possible to have an undisturbed frequency below 1850 in this
contest are kidding themselves.  All of my EU runs took place on 1930 and 1969.
 Even 1850 on Saturday evening was unworkable once the EU's started calling me.

At K3ZM, I work as many EU's as I do by extracting many of them from at or
below the noise level.  It is impossible for me to do this on, say, 1821.  At
the beginning of this contest, I dedicated myself to remaining below 1840,
believing that my painfully low QSO total versus my inland competitors resulted
from my fleeing above 1900.  But I eventually did it again.  It is simply not
possible for me to copy the soft EU's calling me when all I hear is, for
example, the fine next door signal from WE3C, whom I found myself shoulder to
shoulder with for the first few hours of the contest.

Many thanks to the DX for calling in.  This contest is hard work.

73,

Peter  K3ZM


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