[3830] ARRLDX SSB N5AW SOAB LP

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                    ARRL DX Contest, SSB

Call: N5AW
Operator(s): N5AW
Station: N5AW

Class: SOAB LP
QTH: TX
Operating Time (hrs): 38.5
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:   16    15
   80:   77    47
   40:  190    66
   20:  219    80
   15:  337    81
   10:  264    71
-------------------
Total: 1103   360  Total Score = 1,191,240

Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club

Comments:

This was a struggle. For the second year in a row my score is lower than the
previous year. Perhaps I have an excuse this time. We live on a ranch with no
close neighbors so, except for an intermittent noise to the west, I've been
blessed with a quiet location. During the CW weekend on Sunday morning for the
first time I had a high noise level to the north. It was intermittent for a few
days but a week ago it started full time. With the car radio I found very loud
line noise two miles north of me. Unfortunately I could not pinpoint the source
with my VHF noise finder. The power company came out Thursday but had no luck in
curing the problem. I do have an appointment with their noise expert for later
this week but that did not help last weekend. The noise runs from S4 to S6 on
my S-meter on 160 through 20. Fortunately it drops off on 15 meters to S2 to 3
and is barely discernable on 10. 

When I only worked one JA on 15 Friday evening I knew this was not going to be
a great contest. I always track my progress against last year's score on an
hourly basis and I was behind from the get-go. By sunrise Sunday I was over
100K behind 2012. However I slowly closed the gap, thanks in part to an opening
to Europe on ten that wasn't great but was better than in 2012. By the end I had
actually exceeded my 2012 multiplier count and had only 73 less contacts leaving
a gap of 42K.

One thing I don't understand about propagation is why conditions to Europe can
differ so much from those to Japan and Eastern Asia. Last year in this contest
I worked 200 JA's and 394 Europeans. This year only 83 JA's but 528 Europeans.
My only JA's on 10 were two worked on a skew path late Sunday afternoon. Last
year I had 16 JA's and 24 Europeans on 10, this year 2 JA's and 102 Europeans.

Tried hard to run more but just could not get anything going. Had a little luck
Sunday morning with JA's on 40 and a few Western Europeans on 10 but otherwise
it was nearly all S&P - only 116 run QSOs despite many, many CQs.


Marv N5AW


Radios: Tentec Orion, Elecraft K3 â€" 100 watts

Antennas:
       160m: 42m tower with 6 elevated radials @ 22m
	  80m: 5 sloping dipole array from 41m tower
	  40m: Moxon @ 42m, Lazy H @ 40m NW-SE
	  20m: 4L @ 35m and 24m fixed NE, 204BA @ 17m fixed NW 
	  15m: 6L OWA @ 28m fixed NE
	  10m: 5L @ 19m fixed NE
  10/15/20m: 3L SteppIR @ 41m
             4L SteppIR @ 23m
             TH3jr @ 13m fixed SE
  Beverages: 230m NE, 160m NW & SE

Other: Homebrew SO2R box, TR4W log

                                Continent List

                    160    80    40    20    15    10   ALL
                    ---   ---   ---   ---   ---   ---   ---  
       NA calls =    11    27    29    42    35    35   179
       SA calls =     5    11    23    54    46   105   244
     Euro calls =     1    35    89    95   206   102   528
  African calls =     0     2     2     6     2     9    21
    Asian calls =     0     0     1     5     3     1    10
    Japan calls =     0     2    35     8    36     2    83
    Ocean calls =     0     1    12    10    10    11    44

    Total calls =    17    78   191   220   338   265  1109


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