[3830] ARRL 10 W6YX(N7MH) SO Mixed HP

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                    ARRL 10-Meter Contest

Call: W6YX
Operator(s): N7MH
Station: W6YX

Class: SO Mixed HP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
   CW: 1040    94
  SSB:  724    72
-------------------
Total: 1764   166  Total Score = 930,928

Club: Northern California Contest Club

Comments:

No Europeans heard either day.  EA8CN was as close as I got to EU.  Only 17 JAs
worked, one on Friday and the rest on Saturday.

I missed SD and WY on both modes.  KS was also missed on CW but I worked 4 on
phone.  Many more states were missed on phone, mostly 7's and 0's plus RI.  I
only worked VE2, VE3 and VE4 on phone.  Also had VE1, VO1, VY2, VE6, VE7 and
VE9 on CW.  Never heard a VY1 or VE8 even though I beamed that direction and
worked several AK on both modes.

In the early evening and early morning I heard locals NW6P and K3EST and
repeatedly heard the same few stations on CW with rising and falling signals -
K7BG, WJ9B, N9NA, K6LL, K8IA, N5FO.

W7TVC in OR was coming in on meteor bursts just before daybreak on Saturday but
their CQ message was so long that I kept having to respond during lulls in the
bursts.  I got a few ?'s from them finally but didn't make the QSO.  A few
minutes later I started CQing and I assume they either saw an RBN spot or a
blip on a panadapter since they called me almost right away.

On Saturday morning in addition to South America I began to hear stations
weakly from all over the US but only while beaming far south, 150 degrees.  I
finally started CQing beaming that direction, periodically checking to see if
anyone was stronger on the direct path.  I think it was almost an hour before
the direct path was better.

Sunday morning was completely different.  I was CQing into a near-dead band
when I heard another CQ on the same frequency.  It was a weak N4BP coming in on
a direct path.  The band opened at almost the same time as Saturday but was
direct path from the beginning.

This was the first contest using my YCCC SO2R box.  I finally built the cables
to connect the radios after buying the assembled box nearly a year ago.  It
mostly worked well but I had occasional "ERR KEY" errors pop up on
the K3 that sometimes resolved by hitting the ESC key or tapping the paddle but
5 or 6 times in the contest I had to cycle power on the radio.  This always
occurred when I chained messages in WriteLog, usually a callsign correction
followed by the TU message.

I received many reports of my audio breaking up and thanks to those few who
tried to help me diagnose the source.  It may have been a failing cable on the
headset microphone or the plug not making good contact going into the SO2R box.
 I brought a different headset from home that I used on Sunday and didn't hear
any complaints after that.  Momentary high SWR on the Alpha 9500 amps seemed to
be caused by a flaky relay on the SixPak switch which I first thought must be
the cause of the audio issues.  I eventually stopped using that antenna for
running and only used it for S&P.

SO2R was only marginally useful.  One fixed Yagi had been moved to a different
location and beaming slightly more to the north of east than in previous years.
 Our rotatable 6-element Yagi pointing at 60 degrees seemed to be the sweet spot
where the two antennas were both in nulls of the other's antenna pattern.  This
year I had to beam further to the north, a less favorable direction for the US,
to minimize interference.

The rapid QSB also made it difficult to try to listen to a second radio.  I
mostly just used a single radio while running because I was afraid I'd miss a
weak caller.  When the signals were strong enough then the rate picked up and I
didn't want the second radio to distract me too much from the high rate.

I couldn't do effective SO2R while beaming JA because there was just too much
phase noise with any combination of antennas that I tried.  Several of the JAs
were worked while beaming southwest since the scatter or skew propagation
seemed to favor that direction initially.

I worked one local station who told me I was his first HF QSO.  I asked where
he lived and it turned out he lived just a few blocks from me.  He then
proceeded to tell me that just a couple of months earlier he and his son had
visited the W6YX shack and were given a tour by someone who had been operating
in a contest.  My reply to him was "That was me!".  This was the
fellow whom I'd seen out the window (reported in my California QSO Party
write-up) and gone out to investigate.  A local ham had given him an FT757 so
that he and his son could put up a wire and get on 10 meters with their
Technician licenses.  They both plan to take the General test soon and will try
out the other HF bands. 

My only regret is that I forgot to ask if his son was around to give me a QSO.

Thanks for all the QSOs.  Apologies to those I lost in the QSB.

73,
-Mike, N7MH


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