[3830] ARRLDX SSB ZF9CW(K5GO) SOAB HP

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                    ARRL DX Contest, SSB - 2019

Call: ZF9CW
Operator(s): K5GO
Station: ZF9CW

Class: SOAB HP
Cabrillo Category: Single-Op All-Band Non-Assisted One-Transmitter HP
QTH: Cayman Brac
Operating Time (hrs): 44.5

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:  374    56
   80:  724    59
   40: 1653    59
   20: 3100    60
   15:  314    38
   10:    0     0
-------------------
Total: 6165   272  Total Score = 5,030,640

Club: CARS

Comments:

Had a long time down here to get ready to work phone and never made any phone
contacts to check stuff out. Apparently I didn't bring the correct microphone
adapter for the new IC-7610 rig and although I got the microphone to work, there
was some distortion.  It was my first big SSB contest running the amplifier and
worse yet I found out that RF was causing some big problems.  When I went to 40
meters about every two minutes or less the RF was causing the rig to change from
LSB to USB and change the filter to 3 kHz wide. Sometimes half the display would
disappear and I would have to load settings from an SD card and turn radio on
and off multiple times to get it to work again. I stopped and came very close to
quitting just a few hours into the contest.  Then I had a brilliant idea
sometime early Saturday morning.  I brought the hand mic that came with the rig
and first just held it with one hand and logged with the other.  Then I got a
length of #14 teflon covered wire and attached it to the shelves on either side
of the radio table and up about 6 feet.  Then I used electrical tape to hold the
cord to the table and used another short piece of wire attached to the loop on
the top of the microphone and attached that to the wire that went across the
small room.  So the hand mic was suspended at the right height and just in front
and to left of where my head would be sitting in the chair.  Worked great and
that cleared up the distortion problems.  Stopped a couple of times to go out
with flashlight and try my luck with ferrite chokes to help the RF problems
which were only on 80 and 40.  Those in combination with reducing power to about
800-1000 watts made that problem something I could live with.  Just couldn't
have the rig changing to USB in the middle of so many contacts.

15m was open to everything West of Mississippi River and to a few closer
locations East of the river.  I think I worked as far North as one of the
Carolinas on East coast, plus K3LR and everyone in Arizona.

Never heard a US signal on 10m.

I'm pleased with how well I did.

Highlight was VY0 calling on 20m Sunday afternoon while I was working hundreds
of stations, not one in five that was in database.  If I had not refused to work
most of the dupes, I think I would have logged a couple hundred dupes on 20m
alone.  

73 and thanks for all the contacts.

Stan, ZF9CW


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