[3830] CQ160 CW WO1N Single Op LP

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                    CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW

Call: WO1N
Operator(s): WO1N
Station: WO1N

Class: Single Op LP
QTH: EMA
Operating Time (hrs): 25

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 743  State/Prov = 54  Countries = 38  Total Score = 223,008

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments:

Rig : FT1000D, N1MM
Antennas : Inv-L @ 60', Shielded loop RX ant

Soapbox : 

 That was good fun. Hadn't done a serious effort from the home station in this

 contest since 1999. Now I remember why. Deploying a temporary 160 set-up on a
 15000 sqft suburban lot is hard!
 
 N1MM says about 25 hours. Was able to do the 2nd night straight through with
 out a break, the first night I crashed about 4 am local. I've experienced
that
 same sleep sequence on several contests now, despite taking Friday off from
 work.

 As I've been supporting the local Multi-ops my own station slowly slid into
 dis-repair. Spent alot of time since November installing some upgrades,
 chasing gremlins in the FT1K, deploying 3000' of temporary radials and
 generally getting it back together. Was ready to go at the open and
 managed 3 consecutive 60Q hours low in the band.

 I've got a video documenting S9 line noise with a peak at S9+20 around 1840.
 So I was counting on the shielded loop but it was down on signal strength
 during the contest. I ended up doing 80+% of the Qs listening on the Inv-L.
 Felt like I had my head stuck in a jet engine all weekend! I dare say you
 won't find any Qs between 1830 and 1841 in my log!

 I thought I had the loop sorted out and even managed to de-louse a squealing
 power supply whenever the RX Ant was selected on the FT1000 during Saturday
 afternoon, but it just did not play. The squeal was caused by a combination
 of the RCS-4 controller puting 3.5VAC on the radio side port and then
 selecting the separate RX Ant via the front panel switch. I'm not sure if
 it is some sort of ground loop that gets set up but the quick fix was to
 move the Inv-L to port 4 where the RCS-4 uses 0V to select the relays.

 Scoring breakdown included 592(2) pointers, 54(5) pointers and 97(10) 
 pointers. The Saturday evening opening into Eu was memorable with a nice
 run high up in the band. In fact it seemed easier to work Eu all weekend
 than it was to work the West coast of the US. 

 Missed MT and AK. Was rewarded at our sunrise grey line with KH6LC stopping
 by to work me while calling CQ.

 My apologies to the stations I couldn't pull out of the noise, there
 were alot. 

 CU in the next one,

 Ken
 WO1N


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