[3830] WPX CW KS9K(N4TZ) SOAB LP

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                    CQWW WPX Contest, CW

Call: KS9K
Operator(s): N4TZ
Station: N4TZ/9

Class: SOAB LP
QTH: IN
Operating Time (hrs): 36
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:     
   80:   98
   40:  477
   20:  493
   15:  180
   10:   87
------------
Total: 1335  Prefixes = 523  Total Score = 1,515,131

Club: Society of Midwest Contesters

Comments:

My WRTC strategy is to get Murphy so busy back home in Indiana
that he will not look for me in Russia.  During the check-out
of my station the day before the contest, I find that the TopTen
15 meter relay box 80' up the tower won't select ANY of the
15 meter antennas.  No problem, I think.  I'll just go 40 meter
single band.

Then, I discovered my prop-pitch rotor wouldn't turn.
I'd had problems with it just before
the ARRL CW contest  but it was too cold then to trouble-
shoot so I left it pointed toward Europe at that time.  
Now it is warm, but I still couldn't find any reason it 
wouldn't run.  So, my big 20 & 40 meter activity would 
need to come from Europe.  Usually a pretty good plan....
But, not so hot for a single band effort.

Swapped out the 15 meter relay  box Friday morning with my
Ameritron relay box I use for beverages.  Had to remove all
of the 75 ohm terminations inside the Ameritron relay box and
replace them with shorts to ground to get the stack switching
to work.  The TopTen relay box also uses different logic sensing
than Ameritron (active low instead of active high),
so can't use my normal switching box.  Clip leads it is.
All band, low power, here I come.

I can't get the parallel port smartcard for my Windows 7
laptop to switch the TopTen DX Doubler so reconnect the
old DOS computer to run TRLog for SO2R.

The contest starts ok, I think.  I work CT1BOH and CR6K
on 15 at the beginning so I'm thinking propagation is 
picking up.  I even work three western Europeans on 80m
with  my WRTC-style inverted vee at 35 feet.  

Saturday morning reality sets in.  I had forgotten to
replace the 10 & 15 meter stubs at my six pack after
removing them for Field Day last year.  The Dunestars
had been removed for testing with my WRTC triplexer,
so there is about a 10dB increase in the noise floor
on receiving in the second receiver on the 10/15 
combination (the 10/15 meter antennas are duobanders).
Fortunately, the propagation turns out to be pretty
poor so that I don't feel too bad about not using 10 &
15 at the same time.  

The overall DXing was the worst yet in a WPX contest - 
only 278 Europeans worked on all bands.  Still, a bad
weekend contesting beats a great day on the assembly
line.


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