[3830] ARRL 160 K8BL Single Op LP

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                    ARRL 160-Meter Contest

Call: K8BL
Operator(s): K8BL
Station: K8BL

Class: Single Op LP
QTH: OH
Operating Time (hrs): 16.5

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 853  Sections = 70  Countries = 15  Total Score = 150,110

Club: North Coast Contesters

Comments:

I had recently replaced my Bazooka-fed Inverted L due to a storm causing a
large tree limb to tear down my old one while ramming through the back of
my house (YIKES!!). A day before the Contest I decided to also replace the
feedline which had buried itself in the backyard between the house and my
shed over 8 years. 

The old coax was regular RG58 and the new feedline is RG8X. Without a tuner
the SWR was 1.3:1 before the replacement and 1.1:1 afterward. Maybe that's
merely due to shiny new connectors, but it made me feel good about using the
antenna directly without a tuner all across the Contest frequencies.

Contestwise, it seemed like activity was down this year. Last year it didn't
seem too hard to find new stations and crank out over 1000 Q's. But this year
I had to tune and tune to find a new one later each night. Also, I thought
the propagation was significantly lower. It was tough working 6's and I never
heard a KH6 or KL7. Heard no EU on Friday and only found a few for a short
time on Saturday night. My score was a LOT lower this year.

It was very disappointing and irritating to find so many Stateside stations
calling CQ in the DX Window (1830-35). It specifically says in the Rules to
avoid these frequencies during the Contest and only call DX there. Yet, even
when reminded of this, many stations ignored being reminded or made rude
remarks and kept calling CQ. I think these stations should be penalized
since many computer logs will indicate the operating frequency and if they
were working DX there. They should lose 2 Q's for every K/VE they work there.

I'm still amazed every year how many stations can be worked in this Contest
in a Band that's used less than 100 KHz wide. After SS, this is my favorite
along with the CQ version!


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