K8AZ M/S Score WW SSB

[Nzharps at aol.com]

K8AZ CQWW SSB 1995

  Mult/Single:

  160      32    12     28   (Vert. and 3 beverages)
    80    243    21     75   (Force 12 2-L @135', Dipoles, Bevs)
    40    171    31     85  (402CD's stacked @ 140/65, 402CD @ 70')
    20    852    39    137 (5/5, 4/4)
    15    982    30    132 (6/6, 5/5)
    10      79    13      32  (7/7)
___________________
         2359   146    489      4.149meg

  Operators:  K8AZ, K8BL, K8NZ, W8KIC, WT8C.

  Radio Devices:  IC-765's (3) and IC-775 (1)
                          Misc.  Amps

  Comment:
      The AZ gang operated under a severe handicap this year.  The 
crew had a serious case of World Series hangover.  Most of the
guys are sports nuts. We have several season ticket holders, a
high school coach and a station owner whose law office has a view
of Cleveland's new stadium. It seemed as though we expended so
 much emotional energy cheering on the "Tribe" that we had little left for
CQWW.  Our usual "cast of thousands" approach to M/S,
was depleted in vigor and numbers.

     The contest itself was a huge suprise to those of us that did
operate.  The low bands were hit with high QRN levels both nights,
but the off-season addition of a new 80m yagi made that band the
hit of the weekend.  This was our first encounter with running EU
on 75m...what a rush!  The only downer on this band was using the
new IC-775 with no advance time to learn much more than the
most basic functions of this FB radio.

     The higher bands produced unexpected good openings.  We had
reasonable rate to JA saturday evening and excellent EU both days
on 15m.  20m was about as expected.  We were surprised to get
 zones 14 and15 on 10m saturday.  Our one unanswered question of the
weekend:Where was zone 22????

     We are looking forward to WW CW next month...CU in the piles.

     73 from the gang at AZ,

      Ron, K8NZ

         


>From w7ni at teleport.com (Stan Griffiths)  Tue Oct 31 02:35:43 1995
From: w7ni at teleport.com (Stan Griffiths) (Stan Griffiths)
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 1995 18:35:43 -0800
Subject: People who hate contests
Message-ID: <199510310235.SAA22998 at desiree.teleport.com>

>W7NI>I have what I think is a good though quite obvious suggestion.  If you
don't
>W7>like contests, avoid them by going elsewhere, just as you would not
>W7>subscribe to the BA mail list if you hated boatanchors.
>
>K1OIK>Go where?
>Most band segments are totally polluted with the contest pigs.
>I do subscribe to the BA list. I find the hams there have a life
>and are interesting to read.
>
>W7NI>This is a serious suggestion because there are LOTS of places to go where
>W7>there is no contesting.
>
>W7>Stan  W7NI at teleport.com
>
>
>K1OIK>No one uses the WARC bands, let us put the contests there.
>
>Burt Fisher
>K1OIK

It is interesting that you should suggest the WARC bands.  They are
specifically exempt from contesting.  Contesting is prohibited there by
gentlemen's agreement. This was specifically done to provide a "no-contest
haven" for people who don't like contests.  That is one of the places I was
going to suggest that you go to escape contests.

Take last weekend, for example.  There was the CQ World-Wide SSB contest.
It is conducted on 160, 75, 40, 20, 15, and 10 meters.  All other ham bands
were available to non-contesters.  (Actually, those bands were available to
non-contesters too but you have to have a good signal.  But isn't that
ALWAYS the case when QRM comes up?)

I'd like to put this whole thing into perspective.  Contests happen only on
weekends, with rare exceptions.  Long ones are 48 hours.  Many are shorter.
There are 168 hours in a week.  Considering the hf spectrum only and
assuming worst case, 48 hours in a week are dedicated to a contest.  That
leaves 120 contest-free hours (71.4%).  There are nine HF bands available:
160, 80, 40, 30, 20, 17, 15,  12, and 10.  Three of them NEVER have contests
on them  (33% of the bands are 100% contest-free).  The other 66% of the HF
bands are only 50% occupied since nearly all contests are either phone or cw
. . . rarely both at once.  So the bottom line as I see it is 28.6% of the
time, 33% of the HF spectrum is used for contests.  The rest of the time,
the HF spectrum is COMPLETELY free of contests and even when a contest is
raging, 66% of the available HF bands are free of contests.  So, you see, I
have a problem with your position that you have no place to go . . . 

Please recall that this was a "worst case" scenerio.  The real situation is
not nearly this bad.  For example, 10 meters was open for DX for only a very
short time and there was huge amounts of room and time for other QSO's
there, especially local ones.  Fifteen meters pretty much closed down for DX
at night. Same is true of 160 and 80 meters during the day.  The picture
changes even more drastically if we factor the VHF bands into this scene.
No contest activity up there at all in the CQ WW.  And don't forget the fact
that the CQ WW SSB Contest only happens ONCE per year.  The calculations
above assume it happens every week! In reality, your hamming could possibly
be disrupted maybe 10 weekends per year by a significant contest event.
Many contests come and go and hardly anyone knows they even happened . . .

Stan  W7NI at teleport.com