[3830] ARRLDX CW AD1C SOUAB LP
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Mon Feb 20 19:21:20 EST 2023
ARRL DX Contest, CW - 2023
Call: AD1C
Operator(s): AD1C
Station: AD1C
Class: SOUAB LP
QTH: Colorado
Operating Time (hrs): 31:15
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160:
80:
40: 204 73
20: 267 84
15: 390 84
10: 450 84
-------------------
Total: 1311 325 Total Score = 1,276,275
Club: Grand Mesa Contesters of Colorado
Comments:
Radio: ICOM IC-7610, 100 watts
Antennas: Hy-Gain AV-640 multi-band vertical
1/2 size G5RV dipole in attic
Software: WriteLog for Windows
I had been looking forward to this weekend as the solar flux climbed and 10m was
open further and further away every day. I was not disappointed.
This year it was the little things that stuck out in my mind:
1. The 1/2 G5RV in the attic had been acting up the last couple of weeks.
There is an LDG remote tuner up there that's battery powered. The last couple
of weeks, I could not get it to tune. I knew it would be critical for working
Asia on 10m because it is several S-units louder to JA than the HyGain vertical.
So while the big guns were walking their beverages and checking for intra-band
interference, Thursday evening I was hauling a ladder into the walk-in closet
off of the master bedroom to get into the attic to change the batteries.
Mission accomplished! I had last replaced them in November 2019.
2. I left work a little early on Friday so I could be ready to go at 5 p.m.
local time. In the process of setting up WriteLog, I noticed that Super Check
partial was no longer working. I recently moved all those files to a different
directory and WriteLog was still looking for them in the old location. That was
easy enough to fix, but all of a sudden I noticed lots of blips in the band
scope and glanced over at the clock - the contest was already in progress -
oops! I worked V85RH on 10m for my first contest QSO.
3. After exhausting 10, 15 and 20m, I dropped down to 40m where Europe had
decent signals and they were actually able to hear me without too many retries.
Given the solar conditions, I thought 40m was going to be a necessary evil.
Instead, it seemed to be better-than-OK both nights. I thought 75 countries on
each band might be possible.
4. While trying to run on Saturday morning, as soon as the fan of the ICOM
IC-7610 kicked in, it got harder to hear the weak callers. I went upstairs and
grabbed my Bose QC25 noise-canceling headphones out of the travel bag. I
inserted one of the several AAA cells rolling around in the case and plugged the
headset into the right-angle stereo adapter on the front of the radio. Things
sounded terrible! I noticed that if I pulled the 3.5mm phone plug out just a
little bit, it sounded right again. It may have something to do with the three
"hot" connections on the plug. Several times during the contest, I
accidentally tugged the cable and lost the connection. I ended up wrapping the
cord under one of the keyboard "feet" and didn't have any problems for
the rest of the weekend, until the battery in the headphones started to die
Saturday evening. I pulled another one out of the QC25 case and kept going.
This one lasted through the end of the contest.
5. I took a nap between 0440 and 0640z Sunday morning. My wife came to check
on me and I could not get back to sleep, so I got up up and worked a bunch more
Europe on 40m, and new mults like UA2, 4U1UN, ZP5AA and HC2GRC (first time I had
heard Ecuador all weekend). Before the nap, 20m had a strong polar opening to
JA, UA, UA9 and EU (Belarus).
6. Before Sunday morning, I had only worked the usual Asia/Pacific stuff on 40m
- VK, ZL, JA and YJ0A. Sunday morning I added YB8RW (he always hears me) and
DU3T. I think FK8IK was on but I could not get his attention, nor that of
V85RH. Still, I had 72 mults on 40m which made me happy.
7. Sunday morning, V85RH was spotted CQing on 20m. I called him as his signal
grew, and he finally heard me at 1411z. He did not seem to be answering anyone
else before this. UN9GD was spotted, and unlike the rest of the Kazakhs spotted
during the weekend, I could hear this one. After logging him, I found BD1KV and
worked him as well, and another JA for good measure. All in the span of about
10 minutes.
8. Tuning around just after this, Europe was completely gone from 20m. The
European signals were also significantly down on 10m and 15m. Fortunately, the
bands recovered in short order, and in fact I head Europe well into the
afternoon on 10, 15 and 20m, much later than Saturday. It made for a less
boring day, being able to run somewhat while chasing packet spots and cursing
packet pileups. Through a combination of luck and timing, I did manage to break
a few pileups including HC2GRC (a couple of bands), FY5FY (15m), TK5MH (20m),
and FK8IK (10m). Scandinavia and Finland seemed to be in most of the weekend on
20m and 15m.
9. In 2014, I set the W0 call area and Rocky Mountain Division records in the
single-operator unlimited, low-power category in this contest. I did not know
if I still held that record, nor remember my final score. I resisted the urge to
look until Sunday morning during a few slow minutes. Yes, I still hold both
records. And no, I was not on pace to break them this year. Maybe someone else
did.
Stations worked on all 4 bands that I operated. These accounted for over 27% of
the QSOs I made in the contest:
5Z4VJ, 8P5A, 9A1A, C6ANM, CR3DX, CR3W, CR6K, DD1A, DD2D, DQ2C, DR4A, E7DX,
EA4KD, EA5M, EA5RS, ED1R, ED3Z, EF1A, EF6T, EI1E, EI7M, ES5RR, EU1A, F6FYA,
FS/KO1A, G5W, HC2GRC, II2S, IQ8SN, IR2Q, JA1BJI, JA2AXB, JA3YBK, JA7FTR, JA7NPV,
JA7NVF, JE1LFX, JF1NHD, JF2QNM, JH1EAQ, JH1OGC, JH7QXJ, JH8YOH, JI1RXQ, JN1THL,
JS1OYN, KH6AQ, KH6LC, KH6TU, KH7M, KL7RA, KP4AA, LN8W, LT6M, LY5W, LZ5R, M6T,
NP2X, NP4Z, OH1F, OM0R, OM7K, OX7AM, P40L, P40N, P44W, PJ2T, PJ4A, PY5AMF, S57K,
SK3W, SN7Q, T48K, TF3SG, TI7W, TM6M, TM7A, TM9C, TO4A, UA2FZ, V3T, VJ3A,
VP2V/AA7V, VP5K, YU1ZZ, ZF1A, ZF5T, ZL1IF, ZL3X, ZP5AA.
Breakdown of QSOs per entity per band. Once again, JA was king!
160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total
3D2 1 1 2
4O 1 1
4U1U 1 1 1 3
4X 1 1 2
5B 1 1 2
5Z 1 1 1 1 4
6Y 1 1 1 3
8P 2 1 1 1 5
9A 3 3 4 10 20
9K 1 1
9Y 1 1
BY 1 1
C6 1 1 1 1 4
CE 1 1 2 2 6
CM 4 3 3 1 11
CT 3 2 4 1 10
CT3 2 3 3 3 11
CX 1 1
D4 1 1
DL 9 8 37 39 93
DU 1 2 3
E7 1 2 2 1 6
EA 13 15 11 16 55
EA6 1 1 1 1 4
EA8 1 2 1 3 7
EI 2 2 2 3 9
ES 1 1 2 1 5
EU 1 3 7 2 13
F 7 8 13 20 48
FK 1 1 1 3
FM 1 1 1 1 4
FS 1 1 1 1 4
FY 1 1
G 7 5 13 14 39
GD 1 1 1 3
GI 1 1 2
GJ 1 1
GM 1 1 3 8 13
GU 1 1 2
HA 6 3 9 12 30
HB 1 1 1 5 8
HB0 1 1 2
HC 1 1 1 1 4
HI 1 1
HK 1 1
HL 2 2
HP 1 1
I 7 8 16 20 51
IS 1 1 1 3
J3 1 1
JA 33 50 57 107 247
JT 1 1 2
K 1 1 2
KH6 5 6 5 6 22
KL 1 2 4 3 10
KP2 2 2 2 2 8
KP4 2 3 3 3 11
LA 1 1 1 2 5
LU 1 2 4 9 16
LY 1 2 3 3 9
LZ 2 2 4 5 13
OA 1 1 1 3
OE 1 4 2 7
OH 2 10 13 7 32
OK 5 6 12 8 31
OM 5 5 5 3 18
ON 2 1 3 8 14
OX 1 1 1 1 4
OY 1 1
OZ 1 2 3 3 9
P4 3 3 3 3 12
PA 4 5 10 9 28
PJ2 1 1 1 1 4
PJ4 1 1 1 1 4
PY 2 7 8 10 27
S5 5 5 10 5 25
SM 3 4 9 8 24
SP 3 2 13 11 29
SV 1 3 1 5
TF 1 1 2 1 5
TI 2 2 2 2 8
TK 1 1 2
UA 4 10 12 2 28
UA2 1 1 2 1 5
UA9 1 13 6 5 25
UN 1 1
UR 1 2 3 4 10
V3 2 2 3 2 9
V8 1 1 1 3
VK 3 1 1 5 10
VP2V 1 1 1 1 4
VP5 1 1 1 1 4
XE 1 3 2 3 9
YB 1 1
YJ 1 1 1 3
YL 1 2 3 2 8
YO 1 2 3
YU 4 2 4 4 14
YV 1 1
Z3 1 1 2
ZF 2 2 2 2 8
ZL 5 2 3 4 14
ZP 1 1 1 1 4
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