[3830] ARRL 10 N9NC M/S HP

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                    ARRL 10-Meter Contest

Call: N9NC
Operator(s): N9NC
Station: N9NC

Class: M/S HP
QTH: NH
Operating Time (hrs): 24

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
   CW: 1482   173
  SSB:    0     0
-------------------
Total: 1482   173  Total Score = 1,025,544

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments:

Operated M/S CW Only, Single Op Assisted (Telnet DX Cluster).

Objective was to see how well a bunch of low antennas, mostly wire Vee beams,
could play on 10m.

It was the most fun I've had from this QTH.  


Claimed Score:   1,025,544   

1482 CW QSOs, 173 Mults ( 104 DX + 69 States etc - missed only DE in US, and
the hard VY0, VY1, and VO2, and a boat load of XE states { got 8 only } )


Station:  

Rig:  FT-1000 MP Mk V ( with RX Noise Blanker Mod) + Alpha 87A


Antennas:

N. EU/UA9/VU Vee beam high - 60' - aimed about 30 degrees, 44m legs.

EU Vee beam low - 25' - aimed about 50 degrees, 44m legs.

SA/JA Vee beam - 30' - aimed 330 degrees, ~80m legs.

W5/6/7 Vee beam - 25' - aimed 240 degrees, 44 m legs.

5 el homebrew OWA yagi at 17' (manually rotated, used Sat afternoon and Sunday
only, see below)

(All Vees are not terminated so they have theoretically 0 dB F/B)


Lessons learned:

There was always more to do with station prep and antennas.

Yet, I don't feel I was hardware limited - I reconfirmed its all about state of
mind.

Example - this morning (Sunday), I had a great freq in the lower end, which was
forcibly taken by a Central American station.
I allowed myself to give up, and do S&P for a while, really too long.  After
realizing this was not working, I tried harder,
and found a new low end freq with not much trouble, and got the rate back up
where it should be.
So when such things happen, take a deep breath, then KB!

Also, my desire for continuous antenna improvement was a two edged sword - I
did complete a new, better antenna, but lost some operating time to do so.
I had started building a new (the first here) yagi about mid-day on Thursday. 
But with gathering parts and other distractions, I had 3 of 5 elements complete
by dark Friday.
So I started with the Vee beams only, which produced the best hour rate of 152
around 9am Saturday (only the low 25' one).
Then after EU closed (mostly), I finished the last 2 elements, and man handled
the 27' boom up to about 17' on a telescoping mast.
This took 2 hours out of valuable operating time.
But it did pay off - even at 17', it was equal or better to all the Vee's to JA
and to EU on Sunday morning.

So received wisdom confirmed - once 10 meters is properly open, a low antenna
works well, and is really a necessity. 

The low Vee and low yagi were 10 dB better than the 60' Vee, with an edge for
the yagi, probably because it has a broader pattern than the Vee.
Anyway, now I have this yagi, so long as I don't succumb to my idea this
evening to make another one to put at the other end of the yard for a second
radio antenna, and put off doing it until a day before the next contest, I will
be OK...


Radio mod - if you have an FT-1000 MP/MK V, and haven't done the Noise Blanker
mod, you should do it.  I stumbled across this on W8JI's site.  You remove one
C and and
add one R, and you get at least a 10 dB improvement in dynamic range.  All the
garbage I used to hear is gone.  OK, its not a K3 or FT-5000, but its so much 
better than before that I may be able to continue to put off purchase of one of
those.  ( JI found a design flaw in the noise blanker circuit, it causes
intermod even with
the noise blanker off.  This goes away with the mod, only thing is, it's a pain
to get to the PC board to do it, requires major rig surgery and removal
of a surface mount capacitor, etc.)


Propagation - we all know how it went -just wish the flux had stayed high, no
UA4, UA9, EK, 4K, nor more exotic Asians from here.  Only a handful of JAs.
A month ago when we got up to 170 or so, VU, 9V, were easy, zone 26 long path,
etc.  The long path may have been open but I missed it, having just worked a
BA7 on Friday morning).
So we have more to look forward to yet for 10m in coming months/years.



A word for the 'Packet is the Devil' crowd:

This contest doesn't have the Assisted category such as ARRL DX, so I just did
M/S CW only.  It was much more fun for me - I really wanted to see how the
station played in the more difficult multiplier pile ups - having the
cluster/skimmer enabled doing that consistently.

Also, it is an open secret that for the big multi stations (M/s and M/M),
packet/skimmer is a must have nowadays - for QSOs, not just for multipliers.

So to maintain multi-op proficiency, one has to get really good at using the
band map, and what I call PCP (Point, Click, Pounce).

If you are vigilant, you can be on freq of a new mult or QSO before the pile
starts, and have it logged before the big guns and larger pile arrives.
Even from a big station, once the larger pile arrives, it can take more than a
couple of calls to get through.  Sometimes there are mini piles of the big guns
on some random but fresh meat CQing DL or OK station...   So you have to get
good at always watching the new mult new Q window, and doing the QSY etc while
trying to maintain a run freq  ( it is much easier if you have a 2nd operator
for such work, but its better for the soul to do it SO2V; think metal cilice,
as used by Silas in The Da Vinci Code).



Bottom line - objective achieved- the simple antennas play well, and I
thoroughly enjoyed it!


73,

Tom   N9NC


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