[3830] WPX SSB KU5B(@NX5M) SOSB10 HP

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                    CQWW WPX Contest, SSB

Call: KU5B
Operator(s): KU5B
Station: NX5M

Class: SOSB10 HP
QTH: Somerville, TX
Operating Time (hrs): 23

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:     
   80:     
   40:     
   20:     
   15:     
   10:  536
------------
Total:  536  Prefixes = 280  Total Score = 321,160

Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club

Comments:

Interesting conditions. I've learned not to expect anything from 10.

Once again, I'm grateful to Bob and family for letting me come play. Being able
to go to one of the best 10m stations in the US is really fun. We'd originally
planned a Multi of some sort but couldn't get enough people so when Bob asked
me what band I'd like to do I told him 10. He said "You must be kidding,
right?" Nope. I wasn't really in the mood to fight the QRM on 20 or 40 and I
told him that he should do 15 since it's been pretty decent to EU and JA
lately.

The first couple of hours on Friday were jam-packed with SA and OC stations.
Saturday, Bob got down to operating right after we got up and I went to get
breakfast tacos so I didn't start until 1330Z...and by then the band was
already pretty crowded with SA. Intermittent line noise developed as the day
went on and by 2100Z I'd had enough. I took an hour off to try and find the
noise but the search was pretty useless as it seemed to be everywhere. The
drive had just been re-done with some sort of limestone and there is much more
traffic down the road now which kicks up a whole bunch of dust. The consensus
was that the insulators on the poles were probably caked in dust and creating
terrible noise. Sorry to those I couldn't pull out. By Saturday night, I'd
worked 3 JA's and 1 EU. THANK YOU! I spent a while calling OT5A but they
couldn't hear me.

Sunday I got a late start again and didn't get on until 1330Z where I CQ'd for
a couple of hours before the band really started to open. Again, lots of big SA
signals. I escaped down below .400 and found a nice quiet spot. That is, until a
10kHz wide SA station started CQ'ing on .350 and created S7 spurs all the way up
to where I was on .360. You're already loud enough...why have your mic gain wide
open? That seems to be a common thread from reading a good amount of 3830 posts
already.

I worked a fair amount of East coast and just a handful of Midwest...but they
were loud. I think we had pretty sufficient E-skip but it seemed like there
weren't enough people around. Much different from last year's 10m contest where
N5DUW ran Midwest for a solid 6 hours right up to the end. That was fun to
listen to.

I had a handful more EU call in intertwined with West AND East Coast. I kept
the stacked monobanders parked right around SE for 95% of the weekend only
moving them when the sun set to get the VK/ZL/W6/JA openings.

Nonetheless, good fun. Congrats to FR/F4EGZ for his great ears on Saturday. Bob
commented to me later that this was probably the longest haul we've worked on 10
for quite some time.

I heard NA4W and WN1GIV on quite a bit so they will probably have some great
scores, too. 

Thanks for the Q's and all your patience. I can't wait for 10 to consistently
open.

See you in the CW part from somewhere. No solid plans yet.

Colin KU5B


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