[3830] CQWW SSB K4ZW(@NR4M) SOAB HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB

Call: K4ZW
Operator(s): K4ZW
Station: NR4M

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: VA
Operating Time (hrs): 46

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:   30    12       22
   80:  170    19       66
   40:  707    26       88
   20:  743    35      110
   15:  970    34      105
   10: 1494    28      104
------------------------------
Total: 4114   154      495  Total Score = 7,739,974

Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club

Comments:

First, thanks to Mr & Mrs NR4M (Steve & Carolyn) for hosting me this weekend. 
And also a big thanks to Steve & Larry K7SV for helping to get things ready for
the weekend.  NR4M is a M/M so I bring my own SO2R things and consolidate most
of the controllers at the 20 meter position.  I hope no one took a picture.   


I was getting a little burned out on SOAB SSB contesting about 2 years ago.  I
was going to skip last year but JT1CO invited me to JT5DX so I decided to do
that for a change.  Got a bit of a hankering this summer for CQWW and when I
asked Steve if the station was available, he said no one else has asked so it's
yours.  

We moved to a new house 2 years ago so I had to pull my SO2R "stuff" out of the
boxes and test it over the months leading to the contest.  Good thing I did as
there were few issues, most of them small.  The biggest and most frustrating
was my new PC, Windows 7 and the mess it made of the sound card.  Cutting to
the chase, I bought a refurbished Dell with XP from e-bay for about $70
shipping included.  I installed Writelog, my preferred SO2R solution, and it
all worked in about 15 minutes!  A big relief after spending a few weekends
trying to get things working with Windows 7 and at one point, announcing to the
guys my retirement from SSB contesting.      

Things (my equipment and Steve's station) worked flawlessly this weekend.  That
in itself was satisfying.  The NR4M antenna farm is generally designed for the
low (CW) end of the band, at least for the antennas that are not OWA design. 
So when I went above 21300 or 28500 for example, I had to drop the power a bit
or my 87A's would trip due to SWR.  Not a big deal.

At the end of the first day I was just a hair under 4 Meg so I expected to
finish a little better.  20 didn't stay open as late on Saturday night and the
lowbands were a little noisy due to the approaching storm.  Maybe that had
something to do with it.  Still had a good time.

73
Ken K4ZW


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