[3830] ARRLDX SSB N1UR SOAB LP

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                    ARRL DX Contest, SSB

Call: N1UR
Operator(s): N1UR
Station: N1UR

Class: SOAB LP
QTH: VT
Operating Time (hrs): 43.5
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:   29    23
   80:  115    54
   40:  332    69
   20:  707    69
   15:  949    89
   10:  341    65
-------------------
Total: 2473   385  Total Score = 2,845,310

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments:

What a lot of fun that was! 

It was clear going in that the conditions were unlikely to produce a low power
single op record opportunity.  Very disturbed at the start and marginal SFI
for good 10M runs.  You can quickly tell up here in the North when the 40M
MUF drops and only the biggest guns are getting through.  That occurred before
01Z at the start but 20M provided good action to supplement.  160 and 80 were 
very difficult on Friday night but even on Saturday night they were still 
not great from here.  Worst 80M for quite a while.  160M was not as bad but
I think that was because I had more time to scrape for the NA mults because
80M was worked and CQing was going nowhere.  EU 160 was terrible.  

20M opened well on Saturday with some nice rate and then slid to 15M for most
of the morning.  10M provided some mults but was never runnable on Sat from 
here.  Really nice afternoon 20M run with a few nice mults calling in like HZ
and FJL.  Tried running on 40M with no good results on Saturday.  So actually
went to 20 and then 15 for some JA which was ok but did not last long.  Had a
UA0 and KL call in but that's it.

Sunday was about the same on 20 and 15 with a much better 10M opening but it 
was not deep.  Still it provided a couple of 100 hours and those were hours 
that I was not running 15 or 20 so it was totally bonus Qs.  Not too many more
mults called in that I didn't have from Saturday however.

Ended the contest finally having something of a 40M run which added about 100
Qs
to what was otherwise going to be a terrible 40M outing.  In the end it was
similar to the last couple of years but not playing out the same way.  80M
seemed
okay at the end and tried some CQing there but got no responses so I finished
the
last hour with a 20M mult sweep which netted about 4 mlts and a hanful of Qs.

ARRL DX is definately NOT CQWW for mults but it is a great run contest andlike
every other contest has its own flavor.  I like each one for its differences
and have learned to change the strategy and approach for each.

The final resut was a personal best ever for me beating my 2011 total by about
130,000 points.  More Qs but a few less mults.  Still about 300,000 points shy
of the SOALP record set in 2001 with an SFI of 200.  Will that record survive
the cycle?  Who knows?  I am reading recently that this cycle could have a
double peak and that the second peak could provide a 2014 and maybe even 2015
opportunity.

See you in WPX SSB as NV1N.

73 and thanks to all our DX friends for the Qs.

Ed - N1UR


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