[3830] WPX CW P49Y(AE6Y) SOAB LP

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                    CQWW WPX Contest, CW

Call: P49Y
Operator(s): AE6Y
Station: P49Y

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

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:     
   80:  111
   40:  889
   20:  935
   15:  585
   10:  216
------------
Total: 2736  Prefixes = 821  Total Score = 9,073,692

Club: Northern California Contest Club

Comments:

This was a very quick trip to the P40L-P49Y station, as my co-owner John, W6LD,
had dibs on this contest (since I had done SSB), but offered it to me due to
family commitments.  So I flew down overnight on Weds, and back the first thing
Monday morning -- about as quick as it's possible to do such a trip without
going crazy.

But everything had been left working in March, and fortunately still was
(including the extra Pro2 that I was bringing back, repaired by Icom, to the
shack).  All antennas seemed to be fine, and I even had a pre-production
Elecraft P3 spectrum bandscope that Eric, WA6HHQ, and Wayne, N6KR, had managed
to scare up to have tested in battle conditions.

Speaking of battle, part-time Aruban Scott (P40Q, P40N, and K0DQ) says the
first casualty of war is the plan, and that was sure true this weekend.  I've
been reading some discussions in these posts about optimum off time strategy,
but it's usually very straightforward in the Caribbean.  It's best to work at
full speed from the start of the contest until some time Sunday morning when
things really slow down, then take off a large block of time.

And that was my plan.  However, the unheard of happened on Aruba -- Friday
evening at 2200Z, two hours before the start of the contest, the power went off
on the whole island!  According to Lisandro, P43L, there was a transformer
malfunction at the main plant, and they gradually restored power in different
areas (of course, we put the blame on Joop, P43JB, who used to run the electric
system, but he claimed to be blameless due to retirement). 

So there I am sitting in the dark by candle light ready to start the contest
not having a clue other than the knowledge that this is a big outage, not just
a localized event.  In all the contests we've done from Aruba, we've never lost
a minute due to a power problem.  Lisandro suggests that had I been more
resourceful I could have powered the station from my rental car.  This may be
true, but, of course, I assumed it would come back on any minute.  So
eventually I tried to get some sleep while I waited.  Of course, I wasn't
really sleepy, but had eventually drifted off when the lights came back on at
0705Z!  I had missed more than seven hours of prime time!   What a mess.

So the new plan was to push as hard as possible, which would unfortunately
require working through the normal Sunday morning doldrums (roughly 1100Z to
1700Z or so). It also meant doing as much second-radio work as I could, to get
QSOs, not just mults.  I had expected to concentrate on 40 both nights for the
added points, but had lost most of the first night.

As you can imagine, it was pretty odd at 0715Z to give contact number one to a
surprised KR7X, who responded with number 658.  Ouch!  And at that hour 40 was
closed to EU, so the prefix count started out low since all to be worked for
several hours were NA, with a smattering of EU on 20 on the second radio. 
(Interestingly, I hate to point out to my NCCC West Coast brethren who are
complaining of a lack of EU, that 20 remained open to EU virtually round the
clock from P4.)  

There were two general bright spots:
1)  It had rained for two days, so the power lines had been washed clean of the
gunk that accumulates in dry spells and causes arcing noise.  We have often had
high noise levels from local sources and thunderstorms over nearby YV-land
during this contest, but this time the general noise level, both atmospheric
and man-made, was very low for the whole contest.
2)  The K3/P3 combo performed great.  The K3 is so good as a CW run radio with
its excellent selectivity that you can feel that you are in a "hole" during a
run with no idea of general signal levels prevalent on the band (unless you are
saddled with someone's key clicks in the passband), but now with the P3, you can
see the other signals and get a good picture of what's going on in the
neighborhood.  Thanks to Wayne and Eric, the owners, to Brian, who built it,
and most of all to Alan, N1AL, the P3 designer.  Great job guys!  It's still a
work in process; in fact, Alan even emailed me new firmware Friday that I saw
in the dark on my iPhone, but had no way to download (and didn't want to mess
with once the power returned).  But I have no doubt that it's going to be an
essential accessory to all K3-owning contesters.
3) Thanks to the K3, I had virtually no interference problems for the entire
time, and never had to give up a run due to QRM.  The occasional stations who
opened up on top of me did QSY upon request (spasibo to RW2F on 40, who I was
sure would just crush me, but instead did move!).  This contest is so much
easier on your brain, if you can stay awake, than the constant cacaphony of the
phone version of WPX.

Social life was heavily curtailed by the short schedule, but I did manage to
visit with JP, P43A, in his Toyota dealership (he's service manager); Chris,
P43C, at home, and Joop and Yvonne very kindly hosted a small get-together
after the contest for Lisandro and me.  Thanks for the home cooking, Yvonne,
which is so appreciated after a weekend of junk food. Missed Emily, P43E, but
thanks for her number 7 in the contest (and to W2GD, P40W, for number one near
the end).

Rig: K3, 756 Pro2
Ant: 1 el 80, 2 el 40, 4 el 20, 5 el 15, 2 el 10, C31XR (all F-12)
Software: CQPWIN, ver. 12.0
Website: check out www.arubaqth.com.  Comments and suggestions are welcomed.

73, and thanks for all the Qs,
Andy, AE6Y


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