[3830] NAQP RTTY K7A(WK6I) Single Op LP

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                    North American QSO Party, RTTY - July

Call: K7A
Operator(s): WK6I
Station: W7RN

Class: Single Op LP
QTH: NV
Operating Time (hrs): 12
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
   80:   48    11
   40:  184    43
   20:  335    47
   15:   46    22
   10:    7     7
-------------------
Total:  620   130  Total Score = 80,600

Club: Northern California Contest Club

Team: NCCC Team #1

Comments:

This being the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing,
station chief and retired actual JSC engineer who was there Tom K5RC decided to
obtain a special event call to commemorate it, and so this time we were K7A
"Celebrating the Apollo 11 Moon landing from the Nevada Space Center."
(By the way the NSC is a really cool thing Tom is involved in, you should check
it out.)

I was expecting to see ops having fun with the 50th, but it turned out to be
pretty sparse. I logged 3 BUZZes, 1 APOLLO, several GENEs (which may or may not
have been for "Failure is Not an Option" mission director Gene Kranz),
and 1 COLLINS (which I now see was about the radio and not the guy that didn't
land that day, he never gets any respect...) - and oddly, not a single NEIL!

Oh, and my logger would not take the numbers in MOON69. K6UFO take note. :)

I took a peek at the DXmaps before the contest start and saw that the entire
right half of NA was lit up with spots on 10 meters. Cool. I checked 6 meters
for fun and saw an identical display. I hope the VHF test folks had fun with
that. The left half however was starkly blank. Still, I was copying east
coasters tuning up, things were looking promising.

I resolved then to start on 10 and 15 and go from there. But from the outset
there was trouble in Virginia City. I simply could not get a run going on either
band, no matter where I planted myself on the band. In desperation I dropped to
20 and even then, the band was so short I couldn't get anything past Colorado.
It was like a propagation wall. 

After just an hour of this I decided to take a break (!) and wait/hope for the
propagation to work it's way west. But after 45 minutes 10 was fading. I had
worked hard for those 7 ten meter contacts and they would be it for me.

The rest of the contest was a slog (I like the comment earlier about sand and
prostate exams!) and I carried on in the hope that it sucked equally for
everyone.

Whoever built that propagation wall needs a stern talking to.

Thanks to everyone for the QSYs so I could get 5 bands for some of them - it was
touch and go as to whether I'd get NV on 40 - and to the Comstock Memorial
Station W7RN for use of the fine facilities.

See you in the next one.


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