[3830] ARRLDX SSB K7KU(K0KR) SOAB HP

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                    ARRL DX Contest, SSB

Call: K7KU
Operator(s): K0KR
Station: K7KU

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: Wyoming
Operating Time (hrs): 

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:   13    12
   80:   45    32
   40:   71    45
   20:  248    81
   15:  338    76
   10:  157    45
-------------------
Total:  872   291  Total Score = 761,256

Club: 

Comments:

My goal for ARRL DX Phone this year was 2,000 Q's. I chose that number because
it was only a little beyond the result achieved during the CW weekend. For the
phone weekend, I was prepared with a print out of my rate sheet from the CW
event. That sheet showed, without mercy, where I had blundered and where I had
done well. So armed, I figured my goal for the phone weekend would be an easy
one to reach.

It wasn't.

It turned out that I faced two insuperable hurdles.  

First, gale-force winds howled without respite for nearly the entirety of the
48 hours of the event. The result? For most of the contest I was unable to
rotate the 20m antenna at all. During brief periods when I could rotate, I
could do so only at an excruciatingly slow rate. They don't call my area of WY
the Wind River Valley for nothing. Even so, this storm was unusual in its
ferocity and its duration. Monday, of course, was calm as can be.

Second, the logging computer froze, and had to undergo a reboot, every time I
transmitted on 15m beaming NW -- even after I reduced power. That killed the
all-important JA runs. Why only on 15m, and why only with one particular
antenna heading? The answers (which I discovered after the end of the contest,
naturally) lay in an interaction among three antennas on two towers.
Experiments ultimately showed that disconnecting the transmission line to one
of those antennas solved the computer lock-up issue completely. Further
experiments should reveal whether it's a common-mode situation that can be
eliminated with a 21 MHz choke at the feed point of the problem antenna, or
otherwise.

So, what's the good news? Around 1900Z on Sunday, I was beginning to think EU
on the high bands was done for the contest. 20m had become slow and thin into
EU. 10m had been strictly trans-equitorial. From early Sunday, 15m to EU had
been strictly skew path, peaking at 90 degrees. EU stations no doubt had a
direct, great-circle opening to the eastern U.S., meaning that efforts to work
skew path from WY mostly proved futile.

Then, all of a sudden beginning at 1915Z, the direct path to EU on 15m finally
opened for me. This netted 18 mults in only a little over 40 minutes. After I
had given up. That's a fun Sunday afternoon!

As always, thanks for the Q's.

73,

Bob, K0KR (op. at K7KU)


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