[3830] WPX CW AE7EG(@N7WA) M/S HP

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                    CQWW WPX Contest, CW

Call: AE7EG
Operator(s): AE7EG AE7XI N7WA
Station: N7WA

Class: M/S HP
QTH: 
Operating Time (hrs): 48

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:    0
   80:   60
   40:  582
   20:  716
   15:  230
   10:    0
------------
Total: 1588  Prefixes = 639  Total Score = 2,204,550

Club: Western Washington DX Club

Comments:

This WPX was going to be a laid-back affair. I had done a major effort in the
7QP at the beginning of the month and it's been a busy period at work. I had
plenty of yard work to catch up on. So, I figured a couple of relaxed evenings
after the daylight chores were done. So much for the best laid plans of mice
and men.

Two days before the test, Rob AE7EG sent out a message on the local WWDXC
reflector looking for multi-op to play with. I thought, well, he could fill in
the daylight hours and I could play in the evenings and we could put a few more
points in the log for the WWDXC. Plus, he has more unique prefix than my vanilla
N7. I responded to Rob and he thought it sounded like a good opportunity. To
help out, he contacted Mike AE7XI who said he could come over Sunday. I got the
logger, antennas, and radio checked out and all looked well enough for a casual
low key operation. Meanwhile, Mother Nature was having other thoughts. While
the SFI was looking up, so were the A and K indexes. Mother Nature also decided
the local weather would be unsettled and working outside and staying dry
difficult.

>From the first hours of the test, it was very evident that this wasn't going to
be a leisurely jaunt through the park. Conditions were disturbed and many
domestic signals sounded like they were coming over the pole. Local weather
made 40M sound like 80M with lots of QRN. Rob and I traded off throughout the
first evening. (I really should have gotten more than 3 hours sleep but then, I
don't think Rob got any.) It was looking like this was going to be primarily a
domestic test.

Somewhere in here we started having issues on 20M that we never fully resolved.
The SWR would  spike a bit, the house alarm system would beep (which brings my
wife running) and the computer would lock up in some form. RF was on the loose.
We fiddled with various items but the thing that seemed to work the best was
bypassing the antenna switches, Still, we had ongoing issues throughout the
test at varying points.

To make a long story shorter, it was a slog. If it had been a single-op test, I
probably would have bagged it and done other things. However, the perseverance
and enthusiasm of Rob and Mike (who arrived Saturday night, earlier than
planned) made it tolerable. Finally having three ops made it fun and
reasonable.

Saturday night through Sunday, conditions slowly seemed to get better. Even
though the A/K climbed even higher, we found some Europeans throughout Sunday
and 15M opened up a bit. The climbing score totals were encouraging. In the
end, we made double the score I figured we would end up with and probably 50%
more Q's. It was too bad we didn't have better conditions, things could have
been much higher.

Many thanks to Rob AE7EG and Mike AE7XI for coming down. This was my first M/S
in a couple years (and the first since I moved/re-organized the station).
Things could have been better on the station. I can work on that. Special
thanks to my wife. I had promised her a lot more yard-work but the weather and
my unwillingness to abandon Rob in the first 24 hours conspired against her.
She hadn't been counting on company or beeping alarms. Fortunately, she still
loves me. <grin>

It was a fun test.


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