[3830] WPX CW VY2TT(K6LA) SOAB HP

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                    CQWW WPX Contest, CW

Call: VY2TT
Operator(s): K6LA
Station: VY2TT

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: PEI
Operating Time (hrs): 36
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:    0
   80:   76
   40: 1023
   20: 1329
   15:  394
   10:   28
------------
Total: 2850  Prefixes = 964  Total Score = 9,403,820

Club: Southern California Contest Club

Comments:

Wednesday evening at 9 PM local time, just at sunset, 15 meters was wide open to
Europe. Jaw droppingly loud EU signals. Thursday wasn't as good. It didn't open
late during the contest at all. 

20/20 hindsight, I should have started the contest on 20 meters, but who would
have thought 20 meters would sound like 10 meters Saturday local AM. The only
good propagation was South with flutter on everything else. I took 4 hours off
during what would usually be prime time running EU on 20 & 15. Even when 20 &
15 opened to EU, there were never the deep pileups, which is good, but too
often there were no callers at all. 

Due to ongoing winter damage, the stacks on 20 & 15 were down to 1 antenna on
each band, but I don't think that accounted for the lack of propagation. I did
miss the ability to beam EU and US at the same time. 

The most exciting part of the contest was Friday afternoon before the contest.
The new prop pitch had been installed under the top 20 meter yagi. But the
hardline had slipped a few feet pulling the stack match box with it. As a
result, the phasing coax from the top yagi was a few feet short of the phasing
box. A jumper needed to go from the hardline to the stack match box after the
later had been moved. Unfortunately, a storm was coming in and the breeze was
picking up. The guy who had been up in the bucket didn't want to do that job
and it was lunchtime and the crew was hungry. At lunch, I suggested a temporary
fix would be a jumper from the top yagi to the stack box. While that would lose
the phasing benefit, it would give me the top yagi without moving the phasing
box. It seemed like such a quick and simple job, I decided to do it myself. I
don't climb ever and I've been up in a man bucket 3 times in my life. I grabbed
a jumper and some tape and a few minutes later I was up at 85'. A few minutes
later I finished and signaled the crane operator to take me down. It was
starting to rain. It was getting windy. The temperature had dropped. The bucket
pulled away from the tower. The bucket started to go down. The bucket stopped,
as did the crane's engine. About 10 minutes later, I was really getting wet and
cold. I yelled down to the crane op and his assistant. They yelled up there was
no power to the crane. I yelled down to call for a crane to come and get me.
They decided to use the small crane that just had a ball and hook to rescue me.
The hook came up with 2 looped straps, each of which I stepped into. The crane
op lifted me out out the manbucket while I held on to the straps just under the
ball. 

The top 20 meter yagi worked great the first 4 hours of the contest, and then
it stopped working. That was the only visit from Murphy during the contest.

I got to Dayton for the first time before coming to PEI for the contest. It
lived up to its reputation. 

73, Ken, K6LA / VY2TT


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