[3830] NAQP SSB K3FIV Single Op LP

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                    North American QSO Party, SSB - January

Call: K3FIV
Operator(s): K3FIV
Station: K3FIV

Class: Single Op LP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 10

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:   14     6
   80:   94    19
   40:   47    24
   20:   90    40
   15:  105    40
   10:   43    21
-------------------
Total:  393   150  Total Score = 59,736

Club: Northern California Contest Club

Team: NCCC Team 1

Comments:

Kudos to NAQP for a great format.  The 10/12 hour schedule is long enough to
have a lot of fun, but not so long that it takes several days to recuperate. 
And the 100W limit greatly reduces the number of wide-load signals on the
bands.

As usual, 10/15/20 were challenging to work with a dipole.  But the bands
seemed open and the skip, at least from my QTH which is about as far west as
you can get, kept signals mostly in NA.

I think we should all get the "Lemming Award" for our strong herd instincts. 
With the solar cycle at full throttle, there were always several bands open
from coast to coast.  But the crowd moved with the traditional pattern - 10/15,
then 20, then 40, then 80/160.  At one point I gave up on 40 after it became too
difficult to work anything even with filters narrowed down to a KHz.  We don't
all fit in 40M.  Going back to 20/15, I found several stations to work from
East, even though it was after dark.  The higher bands were still nicely open,
but we lemmings had all moved to 40!

It seemed like there were a lot more of the traditional difficult multipliers
available to work.  Got DE, ME, PEI, VT, WV, MS, VI, etc., most of them several
times.  I wonder if that's due to increased operator activity, or whether it's
the Sun's work.

My QLF of the day was with the computer. I discovered what happens when you
forget to change the batteries in the wireless keyboard.  Unfortunately it
doesn't just stop working.  Instead, it starts randomly dropping characters.  I
noticed this when it dropped a number out of a callsign and N1MM wouldn't let me
log it.  Hopefully not too many prior Qs were garbled into incorrect, but
unfortunately valid, entries....!

During the 24 hours preceding the contest we had almost 5 inches of rain.  I
think that really helped with the ground conductivity so the antenna worked
well.

Bands seemed good but not great.   But there seemed to always be a lot of
activity.  All in all, a fun way to spend a day waiting for the next rain band
to come ashore.

73,
/Jack de K3FIV
Rig: Flex-3000, 100W and 135' Carolina Windom at 35'


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