[3830] ARRL 10 W9KM M/S LP

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                    ARRL 10-Meter Contest - 2023

Call: W9KM
Operator(s): W9KM W9PDS N9TK WT2P WA0O
Station: W9KM

Class: M/S LP
QTH: 
Operating Time (hrs): 
OpMode: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
   CW:  432   117
  SSB:  206    74
-------------------
Total:  638   221  Total Score = 408,740

Club: Society of Midwest Contesters

Comments:

This was a planned effort by a group of folks who wanted to see how well we
could do on a Multi-Single event using low power and a Hex beam from an urban
location, smack dab in the middle of the mid-west. 

We operated from the W9KM station and the operators were: W9KM, WT2P, W9PDS,
N9TK, WA0O. 

Friday night was essentially station building, and about 20 minutes of
operating. The band shut down essentially as soon as the contest started for us.
We went out to a party and mentally prepared ourselves for the weekend to come.
Low power contesting is character-building activity and at least some of us
(author included) could use some character building. So off we went to put in a
full effort and see how well we can do. 

Saturday morning started about 5:30 AM Local time waiting for the band to open.
It did just before 7am and Europe came alive. We worked mostly S&P with a
few breaks to try to get a good run in, Which never really materialized. We
wound up getting a really good afternoon rate going working west coast, VK, ZL,
JA. We had 2 operators on at the same time for the duration of the contest,
working interleave with the Flex setup. It didnt matter SSB or CW, we were
working everyone very loud for at least 90 minutes. The very last contact we
made was a JA on  SSB, then the band died for good about 6PM local time.
We spent the evening strategizing and working some meteor scatter and a having
W9KM teach us how to do CW satellites. It was very enjoyable. 

Sunday morning came around and again the band woke up about 7AM central. We
worked nonstop with 2 operators on the entire day, working interleave. Again
things were slow until the late afternoon when we had a nice bump and pointed
the beam west to work all the CA, WA, JA, and VK stations. Just like the day
before, the band finally shut down with Hawaii being the last contact in the
log. 

On the technical side we ran the station with a single Flex 6700, 2 Maestros and
2 PCs with N1mm. We ran a master SDC Skimmer watching the whole band and feeding
us private spots. We had one station primarily working S&P CW with another
primarily working S&P SSB. The 2 stations would interleave on TX. We used
receive antennas on MDU B with the Hex on MDU A and the SSB station could hear
folks calling even while the CW station was transmitting, and vice-versa. It
was. Really nice setup and worked well for our situation.

Culinary wise, we were not in any risk of starvation for most of the contest. We
had plenty of fine port wine and Cognac-inspired holiday cordials, as well as
imported Yuengling lagers from the east coast, to keep the operator’s fists
well lubricated and their bodies warm agains the winter chills for the duration
of the 48 hour event. 

Once again, station Manager Iryna provided legendary hospitality. She kept the
operators energy levels high enough to maintain the demanding contest rates that
were sustained. Culinary delights included Shuba Salad (beet and Herring salad),
Holubtsi (Ukrainian stuffed cabbage rolls), Homemade breakfast Quiche, Plenty of
smoked Alaskan smoked salmon, various artisan cheeses and sausages. Everything
the contester needs to keep his spirits and energies up for the duration. 

Overall it was a great event, and we learned much about multi-operator
contesting. We built a lot of skills in interleaving QSOs as well as helped each
other out in maximizing our abilities and working towards achieving maximum
rates. The band was not as great as we had hoped for, but we made the most of
it, and are proud of our low-power score from the middle of the continent.


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