[3830] NA Sprint CW N3BB HP

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                    NA Sprint CW Contest - February

Call: N3BB
Operator(s): N3BB
Station: N3BB

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: STX
Operating Time (hrs): 4
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Op Time
---------------------
   80:  110       2
   40:  100       1
   20:  105       2
---------------------
Total:  315    Mults = 49  Total Score = 15,435

Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club

Team: CTDXCC Team Salsa Roja

Comments:

A bad day and night all around. My wife, Diana is not doing well, and the line
noise is here. I have found ways to minimize the line noise by pointing the
directional antennas to the NE, and the bands were a bit quieter for some reason
then the Sprint started at 5 local time. Also, I can use the SAL-30 on 80 and
aim it at the quieter NE. The line  noise comes and goes, and varies from S2 to
S9+. I've gotta find and eliminate it or my ham radio is kaput.

The day was difficult as I am the chief cook and bottlewasher and all in all,
would have rather chucked the whole thing. But I love the Sprint and Rober
(K5PI) had done a great job organizing and taking over. I fixed Diana (and me)
something to eat for supper and then got to the radio room literally three
minutes before the bell rang. Was barely able to get the amps "on." 

It was primarily a one radio contest, with limited SO2R for the second hour,
when 20 was reasonably good (to hear) and 40 as well. But by 6:30 the noise had
returned and by 7 pm forty meters was totally unusable. So I was SO2R from 5 to
7 and realistically only from 6-6:30.

Read some of the comments on 3830 about the 23Z starting time and think it is a
positive. Certainly in the February Sprint.  

To add insult to my injury, in all my haste I somehow loaded the TR CFG file
from the NS events on Thursday nights and they count Mults separately on each
band, to the current post-contest Apps that run the score and other details are
for the most part not useable. So I did it the old way ... with good ol' pen and
pencil from the DAT printouts. Fortunately the ADI and CBR apps work fine. 

Looking at the 3830 results and all my previous Sprints, it underscores there
are no meters like 40 meters in this thing and I was not able to go the whole 4
hours on that band along with 20 meters for around two hours and then 80 for two
hours. But being completely deaf a lot of the time due to S9 line noise on 40,
it was what it was. I'm glad I did it, and can write a better report for the NCJ
and the web version. Overall the activity was good but also I sure had a lot of
unanswered CQs. Maybe my deafness contributed to the "unanswered,"
come to think about it. Very good serious participation here in TX and LA. This
little crew we have along the W5 Gulf area is special.

As an exasperation to the noise, at one point K7SS called me on 40 and I never
could get DanWa's number. Had to give up. Say SRI. Will email him and explain.
At that point, the P3 panadapter on the 40 meter radio showed a solid S9
grinding signal with only two or three signals on the entire CW band peaking
above the crap. Oh well.

PS I did email him and he was running QRP! So he was doing pretty well to even
almost make it into to the log. That's just one of those "no meters like 40
meters" contacts not in the log.


Missed lots of mults: ME, RI, UT, ND, AR, NE, KY come to mind along with VE 2,
4,and 6. Ditto PR. Heard a ND station several times always on the wrong end...
never heard any of the others. There must have been a *lot* of mults on based on
the great scores on 3830. N0AX did a lot of work (with some minor help from me)
encouraging ops in rare states to get on. Apparently this did some good. Kudos
to the Wardster and the League 

Thanks for all the great ops in this thing and to Tree and Ward for their
support.
Jim  N3BB


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