[3830] ARRL 160 K3ZM Single Op HP

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ARRL 160-Meter Contest

Call: K3ZM
Operator(s): K3ZM
Station: K3ZM

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: Virginia
Operating Time (hrs): 29

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 1548  Sections = 82  Countries = 57  Total Score = 547,104

Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club

Comments:

PREPARATIONS

My good friend the Whippoorwill has moved on, no longer belting out his lonely
message into the night.  The marsh frogs have suspended their chorus for the
winter.  The chiggers and seed ticks have been settled by the cold
temperatures.  The ever-present poison ivy and poison oak are turning lovely
shades of orange and purple.  Jack Frost has arrived.  All these observations
add up to only one thing:  it’s time to get back in the field for antenna
maintenance!

This season, we had an exciting variety of repairs to make.  Three of my Active
Vertical Antenna pre-amp boxes needed to be replaced, apparent victims of either
the salt air or lightning.  I keep spares.  Three of the five-foot 3/4 inch
copper ground pipes had disintegrated!  Seriously?  The longest segment of the
925 foot feedline that runs all the way out toward the Bay and my outer RX Four
Square had to be replaced, again.  This gave me an excuse to telephone my good
friends George and Rod at DX Engineering, to order yet another 1,000 foot spool
of flooded F6 coax - about my 20th such order so far (Merry Christmas, Tim). 
The worst news was that the 450 foot main feedline to the XMIT Four Square had
gone bad.  I've bought cars for less than that!  As always, the Beverage
antennas needed maintenance.

In debugging the two main RX Four Square arrays, I once again took advantage of
the Remote K3.  The XYL was very helpful from 2 1/2 hours away, listening on the
AM Broadcast stations while I connected each of the four feedlines one at a
time, looking for equal amplitude.  It is a chore just to get out to where
these verticals are located.  I trudge through eight foot tall reeds, over
ditches, etc.  The saltwater tide from last Fall's storm that flooded our whole
property has killed scores of Bay Berry bushes, which now dot the property,
naked of leaves and displaying their brittle, silvery skeletons.  Many pine
trees are also dying from the saltwater flooding.

Once the two main RX Four Squares were back up and running, I realized that I
have some new line noise.  Helpfully, it is coming from the Northeast. 
Charming!  The noise is S4 on the K3 meter when listening on the dual RX Four
Squares with the AM detector.  In CW mode with the filter set at 1.0 khz, the
noise is only about S2 to S3.  Using my magnificent phasing box from DXE, I am
able to null out the noise completely, even as I am listening toward EU.  Many
listening tests using all three four square antennas suggests that the noise is
coming from the town of Onancock at an azimuth of 55 degrees - some 34 miles
across the Chesapeake Bay on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.  Perhaps I will pay
them a visit soon.  Six years ago, the noise was 17 miles to the Southeast. 
Stay tuned.

THE COMPETITION

Signals were decent from EU at the start of the contest.  I worked 11 EU
countries during the first 20 minutes.  But signals seemed to decline after
that.  My hourly rates were as follows.

121
123
116
110
101
100

I managed to keep my cumulative average above 100 through the first 8 hours. 
QRN was no trouble throughout the weekend.  Signals were good across North
America.  I have never worked so many VE7's.  It was nice to work KL7 in a 160
contest for the first time in a few years.  Propagation to EU at their sunrise
on Friday night was spotty and weak.  At bedtime Saturday morning, I had
managed to put 135 EU's in the log and I had 46 countries, 79 States, 1,075
QSO's and 325,375 points.

The second evening brought a nice flurry of EU contacts at my sunset.  This
really helped, because the EU run at their sunrise was very difficult, with
amazing QSB and weak signals.

It was cool getting called by 3B9HA.  He could have been in the room with me.

Many neat multipliers across South America and the Caribbean rim, including
HK1, OA4, PY, HP1, V31, HC2, FY5, YV1, PJ4, PJ2, HI8, FS, PJ7, VP5, ZF1, etc.

The West Coast was coming in nicely on Sunday morning after EU sunrise.  I was
happy to put one JA in the log at about 1100Z after that.

I finished with 259 EU QSO's and many of them were very well earned.

Other highlights included working K2DM in FL and my friend AD4J in GA.  KK6ZM
was FB copy when he called in Friday evening.

FAREWELL TO K8PO

I am really going to miss Paul.  He outscored K3ZM on several occasions in
different 160 meter contests from his splendid station in Maine.  Paul was a
complete gentleman and an honorable contester.  What a loss.

73,

Peter K3ZM


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