[3830] IARU K7FA SO CW HP

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                    IARU HF World Championship

Call: K7FA
Operator(s): K7FA
Station: K7FA

Class: SO CW HP
QTH: AZ
Operating Time (hrs): 12

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Zones  HQ Mults
-------------------------------------
  160:                           
   80:                           
   40:  352     0      30      29
   20:                           
   15:                           
   10:                           
-------------------------------------
Total:  352     0      30      17  Total Score = 50,508

Club: Arizona Outlaws Contest Club

Comments:

Rig: K3/P3/AL-800H
Ant: 40M3FS-125 (3-el yagi) at 140-ft
Sfw: N1MM-Logger v11.7.1

Thunderstorms greatly curtailed operations, and foiled plans to make a serious
single-band effort. (Yes! There is no such category in this contest; but my
interest was to determine who could be worked, and when on 40-m CW.)

Best rates occurred during the first 3-hours of the test (ran JA's). As
expected, signals from Asia and Oceania were strong. Surprisingly, Oceania
contacts were made throughout a 7-hour period (0730Z to 1430Z). During mid-day,
domestic stations were logged, then by 0145Z, openings to EU began and continued
thru the balance of the test. At 0400Z Caribbean contacts were made, and at
1000Z Asian openings occurred during a second period. Neither African nor
Middle-East stations were heard.

The following WX Info may seem lame to you, but conditions were serious!
Frequent station shut-downs to avoid equipment damage were necessary.
During last year's IARU Contest, thunderstorms spared me, and appeared to be
most prevalent in southern AZ; but this monsoon season brought
unusually-frequent wind/rain-drop static discharge, lightning strikes, hail,
high winds, and a small amount of rain. The National Weather Service issued a
Weather Alert for my specific community, and I spent time with them on the
telephone describing conditions. The period between each storm-cell varied from
minutes to as much as an hour. NEXRAD Web Radar (running on separate computer)
was consulted frequently.

For those of you who have never worked a contest during a Monsoon season in the
Southwest, the magnitude of QRN would not be appreciated. No
receiver/noise-blanker and low-noise antenna combination will pull weak signals
through those conditions. Besides the sound in the earphones, the bottom portion
of the split-BandScope display turns orange, stays that way for minutes, and
gives new meaning to WATERFALL DISPLAY.

Sorry for those fill requests, and to those who must believe I have gone deaf.

Gosh, maybe I have!  ;)

73, Tom - K7FA


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