[3830] ARRL 160 N3QE SO Unlimited HP

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                    ARRL 160-Meter Contest

Call: N3QE
Operator(s): N3QE
Station: N3QE

Class: SO Unlimited HP
QTH: MDC
Operating Time (hrs): 20

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 1119  Sections = 78  Countries = 28  Total Score = 252,174

Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club

Comments:

Original lofty goals for the contest: 1000 Q's and 100 mults. Blew right through
them both Saturday night!

Careful time management and planning let me make dinner and eat with family
both Friday and Saturday night and get the dog plenty of walk and evening
playtime. Even put a new PCV valve in the car Saturday afternoon :-).

I had laid out some extra radials - you know, the ones that go across the
garage floor and out the garage window and over the driveway - for CQ WW CW and
never bothered to roll them up. Maybe I'll just be more lazy and leave them out
a little longer!!!

Some deep QSB on EU signals took several from easy copy to gone before I felt
the QSO was complete. In most but not all cases I was able to find them later
and work again. For the most part I tried to stick to 24WPM or so, but slow
cycles did not help with this QSB issue. Maybe I have to speed up my CQ/QSO
cycles so fade doesn't bite me or something.

Sections not worked: WTX, LAX, PAC, AK, NT. I had briefly heard LAX at least
once.

Did much better DX-wise than my previous experiences in ARRL 160. In fact DX
countries worked here exceeds last weekend's CQ WW CW topband results. Thanks
to all for sticking through with my mediocre receive antennas, local noise, and
many repeats of your call!!!  EU mults worked: 9A, CT, DL, EA, EI, F, G, GM, GW,
LY, OE, OK, OM, ON, PA, S5, SM, SP, UA, UR. SA mult worked: PJ2.

I felt frequency fights and NA's running over EU's were less of a problem than
in previous runnings of this test.

I had recently re-arranged my 160M L-matching network to test out a doorknob
cap and alligator clip arrangement for roving high up for phone segment of
band, in prep for CQ 160 phone. Evidently I had never undone this temporary
reconfig, because after the first night of this test I figured out that I had
left the purely temporary alligator clip in. See pics of some of my tuning
networks at http://www.trailing-edge.com/tuners.html

Ten-Tec Eagle + AL-1500 + L-network tuner + Marconi T up 80 feet. (Actually the
T is my 130 foot doublet with feedline tied together against base and fed
against ground.) Receive antennas: K9AY loop for NE and SW, west-facing pennant
comes in handy for uppper midwest and K6/K7.


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