[3830] CQ160 CW K3TN Single Op Assisted HP

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                    CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW

Call: K3TN
Operator(s): K3TN
Station: K3TN

Class: Single Op Assisted HP
QTH: MD
Operating Time (hrs): 5

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 240  State/Prov = 50  Countries = 22  Total Score = 61,000

Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club

Comments:

The Washington DC area had a wet snowstorm the Wednesday before the contest that
knocked power out to more than 100,000 homes. Our house had power until Friday
at local noon, when they cut power to our neighborhood to repair the wires in
an adjacent blacked out area. 

Coincidentally, my new Windows 7 shack PC was repaired (bad RAM module) and I
had picked it up Thursday PM, intending on getting it reconnected on Friday
after work - but no power. So, when I got home from taking the XYL out to
dinner Friday night and found the blacked-out house now had lights, I
reconnected the new PC, started up all the contesting software, tuned
everything up to 160M, worked a station, hit enter - and promptly got a blue
screen of death.

Many aarghs and crashes and restarts later I had about 100 QSOs in the log but
decided the PC was obviously *not* fixed and was going back to Microcenter in
the morning. I wasn't planning on getting back on but I woke up in the middle
of the night Sunday am and decided to go down to the shack, reconnected the old
PC and get on. I had forgotten to dump the N1MM log from the dead PC, so I
started a new log and decided I would just run to avoid dupes. Had lots of fun,
with some EU calling in.

Running without really caring about score is liberating when you someone tries
to steal the frequency. I had a nice rate going when a repeat offender plopped
down 100 hz up (too close even with my K3) and ignored my repeated QRL, PSE
QSY. The rate plummeted but I didn't really care - my non-F1 hand was getting
lots of paper work done until I outlasted the intruder. The rate boinked right
back up - seemed like great conditions to EU but really poor conditions to the
Caribbean and SA this time. EF8M was as loud as US stations at times.


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