[3830] ARRL 160 WE9V(@WE9V/9) SO Unlimited LP

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Wed Dec 10 12:17:33 EST 2014


                    ARRL 160-Meter Contest

Call: WE9V
Operator(s): WE9V
Station: WE9V/9

Class: SO Unlimited LP
QTH: WI
Operating Time (hrs): 27

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 1269  Sections = 80  Countries = 9  Total Score = 228,552

Club: Society of Midwest Contesters

Comments:

Due to the worse noise in 16 years at my QTH (it's so bad
that I can barely hear powerhouse WB9Z), I returned
to my mom's house where I've previously installed a simple
inverted L.  It's more of an inverted J.  About the first
40 feet is vertical, then maybe another 20 feet high at
a diagonal, then the rest is downward sloping.  Includes
16 radials, less the ones that the lawn tractor ate up.
I also have a 900' 2-wire NE/SW beverage, but as usual,
since it runs through the woods, it suffers breakage in
multiple spots every year.  It's constructed with 16 ga
speaker wire which is pretty soft and weak.  After splicing
it in no less than 5 spots, it didn't seem to be working
very well.  It was useless SW, and I only used it a 
couple times to work EU, where it was marginally better
than the TX antenna.  In years past, I had to ask the
neighbor (1000' away) to turn off his electric fence, as it
generates a S9+30dB ticking sound.  I was surprised to find
that he didn't have it on, and my TX antenna noise was
an amazing S3.  So all but about 5 QSOs were with listening
on the TX antenna.

That was pretty fun, other than the entire second day.  Was
a little concerned when the rates started out so slow at
the 22z start, but picked up a little towards the end of
the hour.  I didn't have any hour over 100 rate, the closest
at 96 at 00z.  From local midnight the first night (06z)
until the end of the contest, I didn't even surpass a 50 rate.
My average rate for all of the second day (operating hours
only) was only 27/hr!  When the rate on Sunday morning was
7 Qs for my sunrise hour and I went 45 minutes with no
Qs, I decided to pull the plug a little early, tear down
the station, roll up the coax, and drive home.  I took
about 2 hours off time each night, about 3am-5am local.

Okay, enough about that.  One really neat thing about this
contest was that, several hours into the contest, I began
wondering about SO2V operation.  I've done plenty of SO2R,
and occasionally working stuff on the 2nd VFO, but nothing
I would really consider SO2V.  Even for single band contests
in the past, I'd use SO2R, complete with fancy headphone
and CW/SSB switching.  So, in the middle of the busy part
of the contest (01z first night), I Googled "Writelog SO2V".
Wow!  This seems pretty cool!  And really easy to set up!
I've not operated from this QTH with a dual-RX radio before
and as I mentioned, at home, I use SO2R.  But this year
I got a second K3 complete with the 2nd RX.  I thought it
was super impressive that Writelog could switch the
headphones without my hands leaving the keyboard, just 
like I can SO2R with the W5XD interface, but with zero
hardware!  With the press of a single key, I can get one
VFO in each ear, or when there's a weak answer to my CQ,
a press of that same key puts both ears there.  A press
of another key, and I'm TXing on the 2nd VFO.  This
may be old news to you regulars to SO2V, but I was
tickled pink about the whole thing.

Never clicked on a single spot all weekend.  I mostly
started at one end of the band and spun the dial until
I got to a new station.  Kinda like semi-assisted.
I probably should have clicked more often, as many
stations were gone by the time I got to them.

Activity seemed down slightly, basing that observation
strictly on how spread out the stations were (or were
not).  In other contests, activity sometimes reached
1900, but this year not much above 1865 or so.  Also
noticed less clicking radios.  I hope more people are
trading up from their FT-1000MPs and such, and clicks
will be a thing of the past and we can all be within
a few hundred hertz away, instead of >1khz away from
click generators.

Barely any DX was worked.  The only EU heard Friday
was CS2C, but I couldn't attract his attention.  There
was a 30 minute window on Saturday where I worked a few
mults, one each CT F G GW PA.  PJ2T was heard throughout
the  contest.  Worked 2 XEs and ZF, and was pleased about
being called by HC1WDT (W0OR at his winter HC home).
Missed AK, NL, NT for sections.

Noticed a lack of W6's, especially Friday night.  Was
surprised by the strong showing of AZ stations, being
the 11th most worked section with 32 stations.  Worked
more W7s than W5s (95 vs 92) and only half as many W6 (45).
Ohio was most worked at 80 stations, followed by IL at 63.

Thanks for all the Qs.
Chad WE9V
http://www.we9v.com


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