[3830] CQ160 SSB N2CW Multi-Op HP

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                    CQ 160-Meter Contest, SSB

Call: N2CW
Operator(s): N2OO, W2USF, K2RET, N2OZ, W2ARP, WA2ZZE, KE2OI, W2RDM, W2OB, N2HM, W2CG
Station: N2CW

Class: Multi-Op HP
QTH: West Creek, NJ
Operating Time (hrs): 40

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 989  State/Prov = 55  Countries = 50  Total Score = 345,345

Club: South Jersey DX Association

Comments:

Comments: Our 10th year operating from the salt water marsh site of the old
coastal station WSC which is also used by W2GD and his CW team. After Super
Storm Sandy trashed our operating site in October, we all had our hands full to
prepare the site for the 160 contest season. The first priority was to help our
site owner WYRS FM (c/o N2HM) with site repairs and cleanup. Luckily, the main
building did not have any serious issues. But the antenna fields were a mess.
The entire site was under about 3 feet of water during the height of the storm.
This flooded our storage shed and damaged most of our coax that was stored or
left installed below 3 feet. Our beverages were nearly all damaged by falling
trees and had to be repaired. Just hiking into the woods, which is never much
fun at our site, was extremely difficult to do this year. Fortunately, for some
reason we procrastinated setting up the transmit antennas. Normally, they would
have been up and running by mid-October! A full force cooperative effort was
done by members of the W2GD team, SJDXA, and the Old Barney ARC to help N2HM
clean up the site, and get the site ready for the 160 contest season. The
transmit antennas were re-erected on the 300 foot main tower at the site in the
salt marsh. Unfortunately, the CW team had to skip the ARRL 160 contest this
year due to the storm, but later was able to test out everything in the Stew
Perry Contest in preparation for the CQWW 160 CW. The W2GD team had a
respectable score in that contest, and then handed off the “antenna farm”
to the SJDXA SSB team for our effort as N2CW. 
On Friday, a small crew arrived at the site to prune the transmit antennas for
better resonance across the entire band (the W2GD team always has it tuned for
the low end for their CW contest operations). We trusted that the beverages
were OK. We set up all of our radio gear and had a good crew to operate at the
start of the contest. We had no serious equipment issues at all this time. Only
a few SMALL computer glitches but helpful assists were made by Marty W2CG over
the phone!  It usually seems that SOMETHING goes wrong! But not this year.
Conditions to EU were “OK” Friday evening. We were working EU all night
through EU sunrise. We decided to run all day on Saturday and opt to QRT at
1400 UTC (9AM) on Sunday morning. Saturday evening conditions were not very
good to EU. But they were in there and we were able to pick them up from time
to time. Working west was not difficult. But we probably missed WY, NV by
concentrating too much on EU? I don’t know.
Our team consists of mostly casual contesters and DXer’s who transform
themselves into maniac contesters once a year for this contest! This year was
extra special because I felt that although it took 10 years, we finally got a
team together who understands HOW to do this contest! Do it well! And, have fun
doing it! I am VERY proud to be a part of this crew and I look forward to doing
it every year with them in the future. 


See ya' in the Pileups!
73!
Bob Schenck, N2OO
President SJDXA
GO SJDXA!!! www.sjdxa.org


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