[3830] IARU KQ2M SO Mixed HP
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Fri Aug 8 13:59:41 EDT 2014
IARU HF World Championship
Call: KQ2M
Operator(s): KQ2M
Station: KQ2M
Class: SO Mixed HP
QTH: CT
Operating Time (hrs): 23.8
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Zones HQ Mults
-------------------------------------
160: 7 0 2 4
80: 128 0 15 21
40: 297 0 22 33
20: 1384 0 40 42
15: 1485 0 33 49
10: 64 0 14 19
-------------------------------------
Total: 3365 0 126 168 Total Score = 4,071,018
Club: Frankford Radio Club
Comments:
*NEW US UNASSISTED RECORD* (before UBN)
I had planned a major effort in WPXCW but then just 2 days before redeveloped a
nasty and extremely painful problem (one of my chronic health issues) and so I
missed it. Having missed both modes of ARRLDX for related reasons, I had hoped
that I might have a chance at operating in IARU.
In late June, one of my doctors and I figured something out and my health began
to noticeably improve. Taking advantage of renewed strength and reduction of
pain, I spent 6 full days in the woods " feeding the bugs " as I
toiled in the 90+ F heat to rebuild every single wire antenna. Aside from
losing more weight
while strengthening my legs, I became hopeful that I would be able to drive up
to WRTC just 2 1/2 hours away.
On Monday night before the contest we had an exceptionally violent Thunderstorm
that spawned an F0 tornado that tore off the tops of some trees at about the 30
foot level at my qth. One tree top landed on my 80 meter 4-square which I
noticed while giving WRTC competitors Jorge CX6VM and Lucas LU1FAM a tour of my
antennas and talking WRTC strategy.
I fixed the 80 M 4-square after they left and vowed to complete the antenna
work after I left for WRTC on Wednesday.
Tuesday night was sleepless because of terrible pain from a new problem that
started that evening. As I drove up to WRTC on Wednesday it became unbearable
and I almost turned back after driving 30 miles. But I knew that it would be
my only chance to be at a WRTC since I can't fly anymore. So I sucked it up
and completed the trip. It was great to be "home" again. I have
loved all the WRTC's that I have been a part of: 1990 Seattle, 2000 Slovenia,
2002 Finland and 2006 Brazil when I had to withdraw because of knee surgery.
So 2014 in Mass. was not to be missed no matter what. It was so wonderful to
see so many old friends (many of whom are now old :-) and competitors! I had
planned to stay into the afternoon and possibly even into Friday, but the pain
intensified and Wednesday was another sleepless night. I was not sure whether
to go to the hospital but I had no idea how I would get home, so after an early
breakfast on Thursday I drove back straight to my doctor and then to a
specialist.
This new problem, likely related to my severe chronic health problems, is a
game-changer. It looked like I would miss IARU. I was in agony when I started
on the new medicines. Fortunately they provided some relief but I was unable to
do any antenna work and was only able to set up the station for the contest. I
was in too much pain to operate.
On Saturday I got up early and inspired by my WRTC brethren, I decided to try
to operate. Since I could not sit down, it looked like I would have to stand
and operate and operate only in short stretches of 30 minutes or so. A serious
effort was out of the question. I knew that I would be miserable from the pain
and discomfort, but I would also be in the same amount of pain without
operating. So the answer was clear. Operate and then rest, operate and rest.
I started 10 minutes late and operated standing up. After taking more medicine
I felt better and continued to operate, again standing. Standing seemed to
relieve the pain although my back and neck were getting sore from having to
hunch over the operating table while I stood up. I prefer CW to SSB and since
the WRTC contests are primarily cw affairs, it meant that I was going to be
hunched over a lot. Well after a good start on 15 (I cq'ed twice on 20 at the
start with zero response), I kept going and had 522 q's after 3 hours. I was
having fun and the pain was manageable so I continued and then went to SSB with
a 194 hour in hour 5 followed by a 187 hour in hour 6. 10 was trying to open to
EU/Africa so I kept picking off mults on 10 and 20 while running on 15. CNDX
were actually quite marginal, thanks to all the M-Class flares from the
previous three days. At around 19z I qsy'd to 20 and the cndx slowly improved.
I made 620 q's in the next 4 hours focusing on rate and not mults. I had
decided that I was not going to go around calling the WRTC stations - with a M2
setup and world-class ops, I figured that they would be looking s & p when
the rate died and I would work them then.
At 12 hours in, I was finally able to sit for 10 minutes at a time, which was
welcome because I was TIRED from operating and not sleeping and I was TIRED
from standing while operating for almost 12 straight hours! Since I was not
able to drink coffee, it was going to be really rough to stay awake.
I qsy'ed to 40 at around 2345z to run, but with my 40 meter wire beam so low -
because I was not able to finish my antenna work - I knew that I would not be
too loud in Europe. I wasn't and my runs were marginal. I began to check 80
and 160 for mults and then ran on 80 after 01z. The WRTC stations were
everywhere and extremely loud from about 80 - 120 miles away. As 80 was
getting to noisy to work EU, I checked 20 and it was open. I made my decision
then to continue to operate regardless of how much pain I was in. I knew deep
down that because of my severe health issues plus this horrible new problem, it
was extremely likely that this would be my last ever serious contest effort, and
therefore I could not quit regardless of how much pain I was in.
I decided to make this my personal WRTC and that I would operate to the end.
As the pain increased along with my exhaustion, I had to stand again to operate
and most of the last 10 hours were spent standing. It is really hard to tune
two radios while standing and I resorted to operated SSB on one radio as much
as possible while I tuned on CW on the other radio. I then reversed the
process running on cw while tuning on SSB. The intermodulation between the two
radios was very bad on certain bands and with no way to filter it out it made
operating even more tiring. 20 stayed open all night but never recovered
enough to have a JA run. I thought that it was quite ironic that while I had a
chance to break my US record, I was in danger of working almost no JA's in the
contest!
At about 0645z, I discovered that 15 was open to JA skew path! There were 3
loud JA's, a BY and a VK6. I worked all but there was nothing else on!
Tuning with the 2nd radio while running on 20 was great as I was also able to
find new mults on 40. At about 0845z noticed that 15 was opening to EU. This
was the earliest opening that I could ever recall and I suspected that with the
geomagnetic field quieting down, it might be possible for 10 to open to EU
before the end of the contest. Sure enough, at 0930z 10 opened to EU direct
path - also the earliest that I could ever recall. I tried to run on 10 with
no luck but 15 was open and mults called in while I tuned 10 for other mults.
10-12z were very productive for mults with 17! I reached the end of the
contest with a score that seemed beyond belief:
3365 q's 126 zones 168 HQ = 4,071,08 A new US record!
I couldn't imagine operating more than 2 - 3 hours in total at the start, and
here I was 24 hours later with a 4 MEG score!
I have rarely been so happy after operating a contest, but it was the glow of
knowing that I did a great job of operating and the bittersweet of knowing that
my last contest was one of my best.
I am still a relatively young 53, but unless I make a dramatic and permanent
improvement in my health, it simply is not physically possible for me to
operate seriously anymore. It is fitting that IARU is to be my last major
contest effort as it was in this contest that was my first SO AB ALL BAND HP
contest Win in 1983 from the station of Bill, W2RQ.
Over the years, the best propagation that I ever heard in this contest was in
1999, when I ran hundreds of JA and Asian stations on 15 for several hours
during the day and then on 20 at night. Contrast that with the total of only
11 JA's that I worked this weekend with BETTER antennas than I had in 1999!
I also note that I worked 1930 cw and 1496 ssb q's for a 57% 43% cw ssb qso
ratio. This is extremely unusual for me as I normally make about 70% cq qso's.
Thanks to all of the ops who worked me this weekend and thanks to the WRTC
committee and the competitors and referees and judges and the hundreds of
volunteers who made this great WRTC 2014 possible!
Very 73
Bob KQ2M
kq2m at kq2m.com
www.rlsfinancialgroup.com
BREAKDOWN QSO/mults KQ2M IARU HF Championship Single Operator
HOUR 160 80 40 20 15 10 HR TOT CUM TOT
12 ..... ..... ..... ..... 186/13 ..... 186/13 186/13
13 . . . . 148/5 9/6 157/11 343/24
14 . . . . 179/3 . 179/3 522/27
15 . . . . 122/20 1/1 123/21 645/48
16 . . . . 194/8 . 194/8 839/56
17 . . . 7/7 171/2 9/5 187/14 1026/70
18 . . . 11/11 83/10 7/6 101/27 1127/97
19 . . . 76/11 44/1 7/3 127/15 1254/112
20 ..... ..... ..... 152/3 11/3 ..... 163/6 1417/118
21 . . . 112/6 39/1 2/2 153/9 1570/127
22 . . . 172/6 4/2 . 176/8 1746/135
23 . 4/4 57/11 61/5 9/4 . 131/24 1877/159
0 . 7/7 84/20 . . . 91/27 1968/186
1 4/4 27/16 84/2 . . . 115/22 2083/208
2 3/2 77/3 . 62/4 . . 142/9 2225/217
3 . . . 174/4 . . 174/4 2399/221
4 ..... ..... 24/15 109/7 3/1 ..... 136/23 2535/244
5 . 2/1 4/0 137/7 . . 143/8 2678/252
6 . 4/2 3/2 123/5 4/2 . 134/11 2812/263
7 . 3/1 15/4 65/4 . . 83/9 2895/272
8 . 4/2 26/1 86/1 2/1 . 118/5 3013/277
9 . . . 36/0 73/1 5/5 114/6 3127/283
10 . . . 1/1 78/3 24/5 103/9 3230/292
11 . . . . 135/2 . 135/2 3365/294
12 ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... 3365/294
13 . . . . . . . 3365/294
14 . . . . . . . 3365/294
15 . . . . . . . 3365/294
16 . . . . . . . 3365/294
17 . . . . . . . 3365/294
18 . . . . . . . 3365/294
19 . . . . . . . 3365/294
20 ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... 3365/294
21 . . . . . . . 3365/294
22 . . . . . . . 3365/294
23 . . . . . . . 3365/294
DAY1 7/6 128/36 297/55 1384/82 1485/82 64/33 . 3365/294
DAY2 . . . . . . . .
TOT 7/6 128/36 297/55 1384/82 1485/82 64/33 . 3365/294
BREAKDOWN in mins/QSO's per hr KQ2M IARU HF Championship Single Operator
Continent Statistics
KQ2M IARU HF Championship Single Operator 13 Jul 2014 1159z
160 80 40 20 15 10 ALL percent
CW
North America CW 5 76 126 84 153 13 457 13.3
South America CW 0 2 12 6 11 18 49 1.4
Europe CW 2 45 116 451 708 16 1338 39.1
Asia CW 0 0 1 36 23 1 61 1.8
Africa CW 0 1 3 1 3 4 12 0.4
Oceania CW 0 2 3 1 7 0 13 0.4 1930
SSB
North America SSB 0 3 27 114 139 6 289 8.4
South America SSB 0 1 1 10 15 4 31 0.9
Europe SSB 0 0 8 645 438 6 1097 32.0
Asia SSB 0 0 0 34 12 0 46 1.3
Africa SSB 0 0 1 10 4 0 15 0.4
Oceania SSB 0 0 1 14 3 0 18 0.5 1496
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