[3830] WPX CW NI6W(W4EF) SOAB HP

[webform at b41h.net]

                    CQWW WPX Contest, CW

Call: NI6W
Operator(s): W4EF
Station: W4EF

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 31:20

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:    0
   80:    5
   40:  188
   20:  434
   15:  886
   10:   45
------------
Total: 1558  Prefixes = 761  Total Score = 2,776,128

Club: Southern California Contest Club

Comments:

Rig : Ten-Tec Omni 6+, Drake L-7

         Antennas : 10/15/20 Spiderbeam at 50ft
                    40 Inverted-V at 40ft, 1/4 wave vertical
                    80 1/4 wave vertical

          Soapbox : 

I've been pretty busy with work recently so I wasn't sure I'd be available for
this one until just a few days before. From the beginning I put a premium on
enjoyment over score, so consequently my operating strategy was to sleep when I
was tired, eat when I was hungry, and operate in between. The computer says I
operated 31:20 which surprised me as it felt like I blew off more off the
contest. I think 40 meters was where my operating "strategy" cost me the most.
I most likely missed out on some potential 6 point QSOs to Asia as I got a late
start Saturday morning (11:30 UTC) and on Sunday morning I slept through until
~sunrise (12:45 UTC). Fifteen was definitely the money band with amazing
signals from Europe late into the night on both nights. Some of the signals
from Europe on Saturday night were mind especially mind blowing (UA5A, ES9C,
LY8O, etc). After 15 slowed down Saturday night, I moved to 20 meters, but I
had some rough local noise there which made it very difficult to copy weaker
callers. Sunday morning it was totally gone (but so were all the callers J). 

My other facility challenge was the flakey pot in my Ham IV rotator which turns
my Spiderbeam (the pot mostly doesn't work). In the daytime you can see the
Spiderbeam from the shack window, but not from the operating chair. Rather than
rearrange the shack, I put my Linksys internet cam on the windowsill and opened
a window on my computer desktop alongside N1MM. This worked a lot better than
counting seconds while rotating blind which is really annoying (and very
inaccurate when it's windy like it was this weekend). For nighttime work I
tried placing a halogen work light at the base of the tower pointed up at the
antenna. The best I could do via the camera was to follow a spot reflection
from the worklight which traversed the length of the spider pole boom as I
rotated the antenna. Since all 4 spider poles look the same at night (I have
some white tape strips on the forward pointing boom tip which didn't show up on
the camera at night), I couldn't tell for sure which quadrant I was in, so when
I lost track I would have to get up and look out the window to make sure I was
NE instead of NW (I could make out the white tape when I looked out the
window). 

In any case, aside from the dog eating all my QSOs and other lame excuses for
not having scored more points, it was a fun time.   

73, Mike W4EF................


Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/