[3830] ARRLDX CW W2UP(@W4AAW) SOSB/20 HP

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ARRL DX Contest, CW

Call: W2UP
Operator(s): W2UP
Station: W4AAW

Class: SOSB/20 HP
QTH: VA
Operating Time (hrs): 25
Remote Operation

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:            
   80:            
   40:            
   20: 1725    116
   15:            
   10:            
-------------------
Total: 1725   1725  Total Score = 600,300

Club: Grand Mesa Contesters of Colorado

Comments:

This was my first single-op DX contest operating from the east coast since
moving to Colorado in 2009.  Fellow contesters often ask me if I miss operating
from the east coast.  To a degree, yes, but I've had my fill of contesting over
the years, and now I prefer to be just over a one hour drive from the world's
best skiing.  Since Vail Resorts started tracking skiers on their mountains
with an RFID chip in the ski pass (about 6-7 years now), just last week I
passed 2 million vertical feet of skiing (which doesn't include skiing at
Arapahoe Basin, where I ski mid-April to June, which isn't tracked).

Mike, W4AAW was kind enough to lend me his most excellent M/M remote station
for the contest, as a remote single op.  I decided to do a single band 20, as I
value my sleep  :-)  It was interesting operating time-shifted by 2 hours.  To
catch the start of the 20m EU morning opening, I woke up at 3:30 AM MST both
mornings.  On Saturday morning, I had about 400 Europeans in the log by the
time daylight arrived here.  

Murphy struck when I turned on my computer Saturday morning.  I was greeted by
a screen I've never seen before - something about a fatal Windows error and
trying to rebuild the system.  Fortunately that worked, after about 30 minutes.
 Then, there was a one hour internet outage (so no way to control the station
and operate) on Saturday morning during the peak of the European run.  Ugh! And
then, somehow I managed to open up a second log file on Saturday morning,
starting from scratch.  After about 25 QSOs, as 20 just opened to EU, I noticed
my QSOs from Friday night weren't there.  Sooo, I looked at the log files, found
the correct one, and switched to it.  My apologies for the dupes, but I worked
most of those 25 stations again.  If I did dupe you, it means you were loud and
workable just as the band opened, so take it as a compliment  :-)  I'm pasting
those 25 QSOs into the big log file in the correct chronological order, so
nobody will lose any points as a NIL. 

With somewhat disturbed condx, the Europe opening was excellent, but Asia was
virtually non-existent.  I worked a few JAs, an HL, two BYs, and that was about
it for east Asia.  I heard 9V1YC CQing with an excellent signal about 2 hours
before the end of the contest, but he didn't hear anyone calling - presumably a
high noise level on his end.

Thanks for all the QSOs and nice to hear old, familiar calls loud again.  And
thanks to W4AAW for his hard work in putting together an excellent station and
graciously sharing it.

73,
Barry


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