[3830] WPX SSB VY2MGY/3(VE3MGY) SO(A)SB40(TS) LP

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                    CQWW WPX Contest, SSB

Call: VY2MGY/3
Operator(s): VE3MGY
Station: VE3MGY

Class: SO(A)SB40(TS) LP
QTH: Ontario
Operating Time (hrs): 30.0

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:     
   80:     
   40:  670
   20:     
   15:     
   10:     
------------
Total:  670  Prefixes = 289  Total Score = 758,047

Club: Contest Club Ontario

Comments:

A stranger knocked on the door just before the contest started. They called him
"Murphy"...

I had planned to be SOSB 80M all along for this one and had done antenna work
on the previous weekends to be ready BUT when I turned on the gear an hour
before the contest started Friday evening the noise levels had gone from S1 to
S9+10 on 80M and 160M - on all antennas. And I had no idea why. It has since
returned to normal ( S1 ) as I write this on Monday morning ( and I believe the
culprit was an aging pool pump that has since expired ) but at the time 80 and
160 were useless - and stayed that way all weekend.

So at zero hour plus 15 min I made the desperate last minute decision to go to
40M and see what I could do there so the entire weekend wouldn't be a loss. The
noise was much better - though not as quiet as it should normally be. So I
decided to try a SOSB(A)LP 40M - for the first time ever.

Then at 0050Z the Inverted V I was using for 40 broke...

I went to the backup Inverted V but it had S9 noise and was useless on 40 so I
then went to the 20M EDZ ( not a good choice ) that was all but lying on the
ground and oriented in the worst possible way. But with no choice I tried to
load it for 40 - it worked - and I was QRV again. Or so I thought...

My rate was suffering and worms were burning from the very low EDZ so I tried
the 80M Inverted L with miles of wire under it but because it was a 1/2 wave on
40 loading it was very tricky and the bandwidth was less than a Khz.

So at 0305Z I had had enough of fooling around the transmatch and went outside
in the dark to take down the 80M Inverted L and turn it into a 1/4 wave
Vertical and utilize all that great counterpoise under it. Of course Murphy
came out with me and it took alot longer than it should have. 

When I did get back in the shack I found that the vertical was ok but didn't
work near as well as the Inverted V for those close in QSO's out to a around
1,500 - 2,000 km. I decided to take a short break at 0800Z ( what was I
thinking? ) and then of course I overslept the alarm and didn't wake up till
1200Z so I missed some of the AM DX from the Pacific...

Got back on the air Saturday AM anyway and then EDZ started locking up the
laptop and the router for whatever reason - it had not done that before...

So I decided to take the time and get the original Inverted V I was using on
Friday fixed and back up to be QRV for Saturday night. Murphy must have
overslept himself as he never came outside with me and things actually went
rather well.

Saturday night and Sunday AM went pretty much without any major hiccups ( I
think Murphy was exhausted at that point ). Unfortunately I had made previous
plans for Sunday afternoon as I had originally not planned on operating 80M
when the sun was up - so I missed out on some good 40M QSO hours that I could
have used near the end of the contest and it was r-e-a-l-l-y hard to turn the
gear off with stations left to work. 

That’s all that went wrong really...

But seeing as how I had never even planned to do a 40M SOSB contest and didn't
have the plethora of antennas I would have liked to be competitive, I am
overall pretty happy with my results. Maybe next time  will do a fulltime
effort with the right antennas. Or maybe I will just enter Murphy with myself
in a Multi Op...

Thanks for all the QSO's 

73
Brian 
VY2MGY/3 ( VE3MGY )


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