[3830] Rus DX NH2T(N2NL) SO CW HP

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                    Russian DX Contest

Call: NH2T
Operator(s): N2NL
Station: N2NL

Class: SO CW HP
QTH: Guam
Operating Time (hrs): 24

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Countries  Oblasts
----------------------------------------
  160:     3              2         0
   80:    19              7         4
   40:   428             57        56
   20:   545             73        68
   15:   749             72        69
   10:   193             31        29
----------------------------------------
Total:  1937    0       242       226  Total Score = 6,094,764

Club: Florida Contest Group

Comments:

SO1R (K3 + AL1200), Spiderbeam, 40m Vertical, 80/160m TEE vertical, Beverage RX
antennas.  Packet (telnet into RBN) meant that I didn't have to hook up the 2nd
radio to find stuff - what a game changer for the single op category!

Guam is not really a bad place to be for the RDXC being due south of UA0.  The
rarer Asiatic Russian stations are easy to work, and propagation is generally
OK even with disturbed conditions to the rest of Russia.  I was not expecting
conditions to be *this* bad however.  For much of the 24-hour period, European
stations west of UA4 sounded like people talking in another room with thin
walls.  You know there are people talking and every once in a while you'll hear
snippets of the conversation.  That's how it was this weekend - often a buzz of
callers in the noise with a few loud enough to make it through.  Sorry if I was
not able to pull you out - it would have been impossible to copy the QSO number
which would have negated the QSO for both sides.  10m was especially hard with
permanent QRM across the band from illegal CB radios (taxis?) used in China
that make copy very difficult whenever the band is open in that direction
(toward EU).

The contest started very well even with the disturbed conditions, and 20 stayed
open until after 2AM local time which allowed me to push through the early
morning hours as fresh meat on 40m.  About 90 minutes before sunrise I went to
80 only to discover a high SWR - the antenna had failed sometime after a
successful move of OH0X and I ended up missing a lot of easy multipliers on
this band.  By this time 40m had dried up and EU was loud but unworkable on 160
(all working each other).  The last hour until sunrise was a struggle.

15m opened as the sun came up and I expected big NA runs in the morning hours.
They never materialized.  Both 15 and 10 were open across North America, at
least as far north as W3 (a loud NN3W called in on 10), but there was
absolutely no rate.  US activity was pitiful - ridiculously so.  I could barely
maintain a dismal 50/hour rate into NA during prime time.  I almost turned the
radio off and went to bed.

The rest of the day was a struggle - activity out of Japan was also somewhat
low - and rates remained stuck in the 50's for most of the daylight hours. 
Finally 20 and 15 opened up as the sun rose in Europe and I was able to finish
with some excitement.

Thanks to the SRR and RDXC committee for supporting this great contest! 
Unfortunately, this is still a very Europe centralized contest with Western EU
beaming east and Eastern EU beaming west.  The rest of the world is on the
outside looking in.  I was lucky to be in the Western Pacific propagation into
this area for some of the time.  I feel for Mike at KH7X who struggled for the
whole 24 hours with only some minutes of propagation into Europe.  I would have
quit if I were in his shoes.  I'm happy with the result, but will be nervous to
see the score reduction that comes with copy errors by the other station.  It
is still a struggle to get some to copy NH2T - they still think my call is NS2T
and without the zone in the exchange to queue them in, they probably logged me
as such even though I send my call with a half space between letters.  I don't
necessarily disagree with the rule - it's interesting to hear how concerned
that people are that the other guy copied the exchange OK as opposed to ripping
it off at 40+ WPM like usual.

73, Dave KH2/N2NL


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