[3830] ARRLDX CW K1WHS SOSB/160 HP

[webform at b4h.net]

ARRL DX Contest, CW

Call: K1WHS
Operator(s): K1WHS
Station: K1WHS

Class: SOSB/160 HP
QTH: FN43mj
Operating Time (hrs): 16

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:  136    59
   80:           
   40:           
   20:           
   15:           
   10:           
-------------------
Total:  136    59  Total Score = 24,072

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments:

I don't have much experience on 160, but I thought that Saturday evening was
about as bad as it gets on 160 for a contest period. I live in Maine and can
normally work a number of European stations, but both days were poor and
Saturday night and Sunday morning was the PITS! I wonder if other 160 ops had
the same experience? It didn't help that I had terrible noise problems to the
South and Southwest. I only found the noise source on Sunday afternoon in my
own house! (bad switching supply on a laptop) It raised  my noise floor by
about 10 dB ( ouch!)  I cannot stay up all night, so missed both sunrise
periods, and, with the perceived conditions here, I had no desire to increase
my MQ or "masochism quotient". The noise did not encourage me to stay
on either!  On Saturday night, with my condx so bad, I ended up just tuning with
my second receiver until I heard a pileup and then tried to figure out who was
at the bottom of the pile. I got a lot of practice with the pileups. Not much
CQing the second night as it was not effective at all. I also missed a few good
mults by waiting until the pile got smaller. That was a bad move in some cases.
The DX disappeared for good! That was a good learning moment for me. I lost
7Z1SJ and a few others that way. I changed tactics and called as soon as I
found the DX and I called more often than I did before.
    I did a bunch of listening to the big boys well south of me and could tell
that they were hearing a bit better towards Europe than I was. I heard W3LPL
pull out a DL station that I could not copy much at all. On the first night, I
was hearing better, but Saturday night the tables were turned. It seemed that
most of the DX on Saturday was to the South in the Caribbean, and that is my
worst direction. I have no idea why it is worse, but it always is. I always do
better towards Europe. I might have some tower interaction going on there? 
    I heard a small number of raunchy CW signals on 160 meters. Key clicks were
a problem with several stations. The worst had obviously defective radios
generating comblines of spurs on either side of their CW frequency. I thought
one guy was calling me and he was almost 10 kHz away. All it took was one look
at the panadaptor screen to see what was happening! 
    All in all, I had a discouraging time of it. The good news is that
everything worked well with no computer logging problems, no antenna issues,
and the home brew amp chugged along just fine all weekend. I am thankful for
that.  Maybe I can try to beat my CW score in the SSB weekend?


Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/