[3830] ARRLDX SSB KU2M SO Unlimited HP

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                    ARRL DX Contest, SSB - 2020

Call: KU2M
Operator(s): KU2M
Station: KU2M

Class: SO Unlimited HP
QTH: Wayne, NJ
Operating Time (hrs): 15.9

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:   21    17
   80:   83    53
   40:  184    82
   20:  512    94
   15:  100    47
   10:   35     5
-------------------
Total:  935   298  Total Score = 835,890

Club: Frankford Radio Club

Comments:

I always enjoy the major DX phone tests, being one of the insane few who
actually like Phone. I also enjoy the challenge of SSB contests, as long as my
aging vocal cords hold out. 

I was too exhausted from an intense work week to commit to a serious effort, so
I operated sporadically over the weekend, and managed to do some running here
and there to rack up a few points for the club (FRC). Said 'what the heck' and
left the Telnet on- that was new for the ARRL DX test for me. After years of
operating only unassisted, it was fun seeing all those mults and stations just
magically appear. Gee - just click, click, click, and they're in the log! I'll
say this: it sure beats using ESP to find a few rare ones hidden underneath the
QRM. It is annoying, however, how many posts get the callsigns wrong, and I
quickly realized that you can't rely upon the post for the correct callsign.

Prop-wise, besides the usual dog-eat-dog madhouse of 20M, 40 and 80 seemed in
pretty good shape - in fact, I don't think I've ever heard 80M better. Saturday
night (the only night I was on 80), it sounded more like 20M... loud DX signals
all over the place, with no QRN, no static crashes, and almost nonexistent band
noise. Hours before sunset, during broad daylight, 40M was wide open to EU, and
for a brief time I even had a pretty good pileup going on 40, running split. (I
was a bit puzzled, though, by all the DX stations trying to run simplex between
7100 and 7128 - you'd think that after getting no responses, they'd either move
above 7128 or announce a QSX frequency!) Even though 15 was preponderantly open
along N-S paths to the Caribbean and South America, it did open a little to
Europe, yielding 8 EU QSOs - and V55A and EA8BQM, the two lone Africans. Not a
lot, but better than bupkis, which is what I expected. 10M was more or less DOA,
being open only for the usual N-S path to South America on Saturday afternoon,
and on DupeDay (some people call it Sunday) was completely dead whenever I
checked, at least from the KU2M Triangle. Oh well, still some years to wait
before we get 15 and 10 back - if we ever do get them back!

See you in WPX...

Station:
FTdx5000 & Alpha 9500
Antennas:
SteppIR DB36 stack at 115' & 65', top DB36 with 80M dipole
Fixed 204B 20M (K2AGZ Memorial) south yagi at 40'
Fixed 4 el 15M south yagi at 30'
4/4/4 "Frankenstein" 15M stack fixed on EU
160M Inverted vee and 1/2 wave slopers


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