[3830] IARU N1EN M/S LP

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                    IARU HF World Championship

Call: N1EN
Operator(s): N1EN
Station: N1EN

Class: M/S LP
QTH: 
Operating Time (hrs): 

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Zones  HQ Mults
-------------------------------------
  160:    9      0      2        3
   80:  109     23      8       16
   40:  196     16     17       31
   20:  241     62     25       38
   15:   86      1     13       24
   10:   22      0      7        6
-------------------------------------
Total:  663    102     72      118  Total Score = 381,710

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments:

Entered M/S because I love being soaked by the RBN firehose more than I hate the
10 minute band/mode change rule.

I had planned to attempt the full 24 hours, so as to keep an eye on the WRTC
scoreboard, but I reached the point where it was starting to feel like work and
I was about to start making mistakes, so I went QRT a bit after 0600Z.

Congrats to the WRTC organizers and competitors.  Mother Nature seems to have
cooperated.  Propagation was a bit slow Saturday morning/afternoon, but the
evening sure was fun.  20 was going strong when I shut down, and 40 benefited
from a lack of thunderstorms. Noise level came up on 80 late; activity on 80
seemed better than last year, but that seemed to be the result of WRTC teams
attracting attention to the band in spite of mediocre low band prop.

Even though there were a few glitches, having the live WRTC scoreboard going
during the test was a very nice touch.  It was also somewhat humbling; I've
been able to delude myself in other contests into believing that a big reason
for the wide gaps in Q count between my results and the big guns has been
geography, station quality, etc.   Well, with WRTC sites being within a couple
of hours' drive, with WRTC competitors limited to running barefoot, and with
their antennas not being *that* much better than mine (WRTC sites having a
better beam for the high bands, but my having slightly better antennas for 40
and 80)...even allowing for two-person vs one-person operations, I have to
admit that those guys (and gals) are just much, much better than I.  Bravo!

The WRTC aspect of the contest started off being a little bit of a letdown. 
Originally, I had wanted to volunteer.  Then I was sucked into helping out with
an ARISS contact that was to have occurred during the ARRL Convention next week.
 That was canceled a bit too late for me to free up time / jump on the
bandwagon.  Test started, and I could see the competitors on the board, and
observe online chatter about their activities....but this QTH was in the skip
zone for the WRTC sites.  I could hear whispers of them (and their pileups) on
15 and 20, and I did manage to work N1U on 10.   However the WRTC aspect of the
test really picked up once 40m came alive.  Then I had a surprising amount of
fun just picking them off on 40, then on 80, where NVIS prop facilitated
getting around the piles.    I managed clean sweeps of all 59 WRTC stations on
40m CW and 80m CW, and picked up several of them on 40 and 80 phone as well.

It was good to hear the HQ station itself active as W100AW, making W100AW the
only 6-band station in the log, which should help with the Centennial QSO Party
point total.  That benefit doesn't make up, however, for the fact that I
probably should have used a club call instead of my personal call for this
running.  My apologies to N1N, N1R, N1A, N1F, and N1L, whom I seemed to be
mistaken for a few times.  (N1L seems like an unfortunate callsign to compete
under, BTW; it seems like just tempting fate....)

I look forward to hearing reports from the WRTC sites, official disclosure of
the users of the different 1x1 calls, equipment and software choices, etc.  I
assume that some of this might come up for those of us attending Contest
University on Thursday?  :)

73 and thanks for the Qs.


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