[3830] ARRLDX CW WC1M SOSB/10 HP

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                    ARRL DX Contest, CW

Call: WC1M
Operator(s): WC1M
Station: WC1M

Class: SOSB/10 HP
QTH: NH
Operating Time (hrs): 18
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:           
   80:           
   40:           
   20:           
   15:           
   10: 1391    98
-------------------
Total: 1391    98  Total Score = 408,366

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments:

It’s been a long time since I’ve done an all-out SOAB effort and I’d hoped
to do one in this contest. But too much is going on in my work life and I just
wasn’t mentally or physically prepared for 40+ hours of contesting.

I did have enough in me to do about half a contest, so I opted for SOSB/10 HP.
In addition to this category allowing plenty of nighttime sleep hours, I love
10 meters (who doesn’t?), and I wanted to see how effective my antennas are
on that band near the peak of the sunspot cycle: 

-	3-stack of 4-el SteppIRs on TIC rings at 95’/64’/34’
-	Force-12 6-el monobander at 115’ (rotatable)
-	C3E at 48’ on a rotator but usually fixed South

I’m pretty sure the second director on the bottom SteppIR isn’t working,
but the antenna seems to perform well as a 3-el, and adding it to the stack
made enough of a difference that I used all three antennas most of the time.

My intention was to try to win, but several mistakes, a work interruption and a
family medical emergency combined to put victory far out of reach.

I was able to run about 20 JAs and a UA0 during the opening hour before the
band shut down. I had to run on the monobander at 115’ because the middle TIC
ring in the stack was stuck at 50-degrees due to the low temperature. Probably
water incursion caused the motor grease to freeze up. It freed up in the
morning and was fine for the rest of the contest.

I set the alarm clock for 7:30am EST (1230z), which was my first mistake. Based
on recent experience, I thought the band wouldn’t open for running until
1300z. I don’t know when it did open, but by the time I got to the radio the
band was in full swing. I’m not sure how much I missed, but it was at least
half an hour of high rate, and that probably cost me about 75 QSOs �"
maybe more. 

Nevertheless, I had four good hours of high rate, which netted about 600 Qs.
The rate was decent (134, 166, 149, 147), but it wasn’t the highest I’ve
seen on 10. It was tough to get the 10-minute rate meter over 200 for any
length of time, except for one 30-minute stretch during the 1400z hour. My
sense was that conditions were quite good on 10, but not spectacular. It
wasn’t that “magic band” feeling where every part of the world sounds
like next-door and even the 5W QRP stations boom in. It seemed more like 20 or
15 on a good day -- just not as crowded. Even so, it was lots of fun.

Once EU faded out, I spent the rest of the daylight hours S&Ping for mults,
going from 51 at the end of the morning runs to 88 by the time the band shut
down. I ran almost 100 JAs during the last couple of hours, with a few UA0s, a
few Alaskans and a 9M6 thrown in for good measure.

Somewhere along the line I checked the online scores and saw that K2SSS was
about 100K points ahead of me. I did some figuring and realized that I
couldn’t catch him. My not getting to the radio early enough was one reason,
but I probably didn’t manage the pileups as efficiently as Zee did.

When the contest was over I saw that Zee had 17 more mults, and while I missed
quite a bit of mult hunting on the second day, his report indicates that he had
most of his mult lead on the first day. Not sure why I missed so many. I was
able to listen on the second radio with my C3E pointed south, which is 200’
away from the stack and monobander, but I didn’t work any mults while running
because generally the rate was too high. It was almost entirely an SO1R affair
for me.

Sunday I got up at 6:30am EST (11:30z), and that turned out to be perfect.
Plenty of time to make a cup of coffee and get ready for the morning pileups.
When I sat down at the radio at about 1200z, I was able to work only loud
stations, and some of them needed fills on my call. So they band wasn’t
really open yet. Minutes later the band opened so suddenly that it was like
someone flipped a switch (I was watching on the band scope, and it was
something to see.)

The runs on the second day were more modest, which I think was partly due to
slightly disturbed conditions (I believe the K-index was 5 at one point and I
know it was at 3 most of the morning.) The other cause of the lower rates was
the usual attrition in ARRL DX on the second day. Still, I was able to add
around 550 more Qs to the total.

When EU closed, I took an hour break for lunch and rest (did that the first
day, too), and then an unexpected work demand came up and I had to spend a
couple of hours dealing with it (roughly 1900z-2000z). So my one hour break
turned into a three hour break. 

I sat back down at the radio at 2000z to see if I could boost the mult total,
but a quick trip through the band netted only eight Qs and one mult. I had most
of the easy stuff to the South, so I hoped maybe I could find a few Pacific
mults. I figured in four hours I should be able to find at least two more mults
to get my total over 100! I also hoped a few JAs might play hookey from work on
Monday and play radio during the last two hours or so of the contest, helping
me to get that QSO total up a bit.

But at that moment my phone rang. It was my wife, who informed me she had taken
a nasty fall on the ice at the local pond and had hit her head. She was advised
by bystanders not to drive home, so I jumped in the car to pick her up. Once I
got the full story, and heard that she had some difficulty speaking after the
accident, I decided we should take the precaution of visiting the ER. There she
was diagnosed with a concussion, but the CAT scan was clear of any internal
bleeding �" thank goodness. We didn’t leave the ER until well after
0000z.

So I ended up missing the last 6 ½ hours of the contest. I doubt that I could
have caught K2SSS or N4PN even had I been on the air, but might have been able
to put up a more respectable score. But I’ll take a negative CAT scan over a
contest score any day!

See you in WPX.

73, Dick WC1M


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