[3830] IARU NX5M M/S HP

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                    IARU HF World Championship

Call: NX5M
Operator(s): NX5M, KU5B, KJ5T
Station: NX5M

Class: M/S HP
QTH: TX
Operating Time (hrs): 24

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Zones  HQ Mults
-------------------------------------
  160:    46     0      6        3
   80:   106     0     13        9
   40:   260   151     28       31
   20:   270   419     32       44
   15:   488   219     35       47
   10:   115     6     16       10
-------------------------------------
Total:  1285   795    130      144  Total Score = 1,841,006

Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club

Comments:

Returned to Texas from Colorado the weekend before the contest.  Weather
forecast was calling for thunderstorms for at least the next 10 days. In
discussion with the other ops it was pretty much going to be a decision made
late in the week.  Also had to consider that upon my return to Texas I got
sick, was not getting hardly any quality sleep, was well below what I would
call my best and in reality did not care if we did it or not.  KU5B 
and I went out for dinner Friday and discussed our options in the event storms
came to visit.  At 730pm we made the decision to go ahead and operate so KJ5T
was quickly contacted to let him know this was a "go".  However, we made it
clear that we were not going to give this thing a 100% effort....and we
followed that plan.
We only connected the high band antennas and had to wait to do that in the hour
before the start of the contest.
The low band antennas would be connected late in the evening and we would
disconnect the 10 and 15 antennas in the process since we were not going to go
back to those two bands.
It all worked out as planned and the storms did not come close enough to cause
us shut down.
There was a little adventure during the 80 and 160 antenna setup process.  At
the base of the 20m tower is a housing which is where the 160m antenna feedline
ties in to the coax that leads back to the shack.  A few feet over 
is another housing which is centrally located to all the 80m antennas.  KJ5T
went out with me to connect these antennas but as I set the 80m phasing relay
box on top of the 20m housing both of us saw something move.  SNAKE!
Yeah, a 6 foot snake was sitting on top of the housing and there I was standing
right in front of it with my hand less than 4 inches from it at one point. 
Well, we gotta get this thing out of here.  In the process, the snake 
decided to crawl into the 20m tower and eventually made his way into the 80m
housing.  Now what?  It took 20 or so minutes to finally get the snake to crawl
out of the housing and from there he headed north allowing me to 
finish up the connections.  Oh, but wait......one of the points I have to
connect on the 160 vertical where the matching connection are was home to a
black widow spider.  That elusive rascal did not survive.  Advice for self;
when it is snake and insect season I need to not only watch the ground but also
watch right in front of me and not be so quick to just put my hands somewhere
without checking it out first.
As the evening progressed it was discovered that the CW interface for the 80m
station was acting up.  After some research it was found that the transistor
was bad and I did not have a supply of transistors at the station.  I ended up
robbing the right transistor from another device to resolve that problem.
Glad the high bands cooperated because I think we all dread the low bands,
especially 80 and 160 in the summer.
Our lower band totals were down as a result but our raw overall score was a
little higher than last years score which was our highest IARU score ever. 
Perhaps it could have been higher with more effort but the main thing is 
that everything still works.  I was unable to work some stations on 10 and
found that I really needed more than 500 watts on that band for some of the
scatter contacts.  For this contest a low power amp was all I had available.
We could not help but laugh as we watched KJ5T running 20m SSB Satuday night,
after having a 16oz Red Bull, stroking the keyboard with hand movements that
looked like Liberace playing the piano.
This sure did not seem like 24 hours but perhaps that is because we did not go
at it as hard as we normally would.  Still tired nonetheless.
It also allowed me a chance to make sure everything was working since next
Saturday is NAQP RTTY and we are, for the first time, going to enter in the
multi-two category.  Prior to IARU the station had not been used since
WPX SSB in March.

73,
Bob NX5M & crew....KU5B, KJ5T


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