[3830] ARRLDX SSB VE6TL SOAB(A) HP

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                    ARRL DX Contest, SSB

Call: VE6TL
Operator(s): VE6TL
Station: VE6TL

Class: SOAB(A) HP
QTH: Calgary
Operating Time (hrs): 25

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:    0     0
   80:    9     9
   40:   34    23
   20:  215    83
   15:  275    72
   10:   69    27
-------------------
Total:  602   214  Total Score = 386,484

Club: ALBERTA CLIPPERS

Comments:

With all those sunspots, I thought condx would be much better.  I actually did
worse than last year's score and (by about 70,000 points) operated an 2 more
hours this year than last - thanks to the high velocity solar wind.  Having
only a 40' tower in a city lot in the middle of the RF black hole of Alberta
must be experienced to be appreciated.  The only run I could manage came at the
end on Sunday, when I worked about 50 JAs in about 90 minutes.  I tried running
all over the place but kept getting run over and no spots.  So it was 98% S&P. 
Still, there were a few great moments that made it all worthwhile.  Working not
one but two ZLs (ZL1BYZ and ZL3IO) on 10m was a first from this QTH (my
previous best DX on 10m was Argentina - over the past 6 years).  It was also a
first hearing and then working Indonesia on 15m.  I also managed to work V51YJ
who was only running 100W and I could barely hear him.  

So the main differences this year over last:

1)  This year had zero propagation on 160 and almost none on 80 and 40m.  
2)  This year I couldn't run Europe at all on any band.
3)  This year I actually had more Qs on 15m than 20m, with over 800 Q's on 20m
last year and a quarter of that this year.
4)  Last year I only had 1 QSO on 10m and this year I set a new personal high. 
(The past 6 years have had nothing but static or the occasional sporadic E
propagation on 10m - being lucky to work Arizona.)
5)  This year I ran assisted whereas in the past I didn't use the spots. So my
score should have been much, much better than last year.  My mults were
actually higher (214 to 153), so that helped quite a bit.  This was almost
entirely due to 15 and 10m.   

One last comment.  I noticed that the number of mistakes on the spotting
network was HUGE - maybe up to 20%?.  I've never seen so many wrong calls -
which makes me wonder if people were deliberately doing this.  Instead, I
believe it was probably due to poor condx either from the aurora or by the
bands just being too crowded.  I wouldn't be surprised if many people's logs
were well over 10% bad calls.  It would be interesting to compare the error
rate of this year's results with previous years - if the judges have the data
available to them.  

CU in the next one,

JERRY VE6TL
Calgary, AB

Rig:  FTDX-5000MP
Amp:  FL-7000 (about 400W)
Ant:  TH6DXX @40' (10-15-20m), BigIR Vertical (40-80m)
App:  N1MM Logger


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