[CQ-Contest] K4OJ @ K4XS, Murphy is an SOB!

[James White]

Murphy culminated a week long effort to screw up SS2K for K4OJ - first the
regular family station was hosed a week before the contest, everything
seemed broken and the clock was ticking and I had used all my vacation time
for the year. I secured an invite to the phone king K4XS' super station so I
could maximize my effort.

W1CW managed to piece the family stn back together by Thursday PM so he
piloted it this past weekend.  I journeyed to the K4XS Monster Station, with
dreams of grandeur - any place that has 14 rotor boxes staring you down has
to
be awesome!

Only a couple of hours into the contest within a few minutes of each other I
broke both amplifiers, I had brought one up for the run station and Bill
(XS)
amp was on the 2nd Radio.  I went to bed with a broken spirit but a
sweep...it
was not the weekend I had thought it would be.

Sunday AM the amps still weren't working and when Bill got home I broke the
news...spent Sunday with the main position on the speaker while I dismantled
all the gear I had lugged up there for the effort.When I hit 1000 QSOs I
waited
for the pile to stop and so did I - for an event that has been extremely fun
for the past six or seven years this was a bummer.

Is it me or has the level of operator skill gone into the toilet?  Not only
was
I seriously stepped on many times - start CQing don't ask but do it for
several
times before you relinquish the frequency back to the original occupant and
he
has to try and salvage the QSO with the Q station on the other end...(these
attempts usually were not for very long usually, with Bills big laser beam
signals from stacked yagis)

And oh yeah, the operators on the other end had to be told about

West Friggin Central Florida

on every third or fourth QSO, aw crud...

SS CW is my favorite contest but I tell ya with prop like it was and several
weeks of visits by Murphy I am at an emotional low right now...if I had not
had
such a nice run in SS I would say SS really bites after this past weekend.

I do very much so wish to thank Bill K4XS for the invite to his killer
station
and am sorry I couldn't have added some wallpaper to his shack (not that he
needs ANY!).

It will be interesting to see how prop ends up sorting things out - this was
a
weird weekend and hopefully it won't be weird like this again next year!


Jim, K4OJ

                     ARRL Sweepstakes - CW

Call: K4OJ
Operator(s): K4OJ
Station: K4XS

Class: SO HP
Section: WCF
Operating Time (hrs): 19
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band     QSOs
-------------------------------
  160:
   80:
   40:
   20:
   15:
   10:
-------------------------------
Total:   1000 x     80  =  160,000

Club: Florida Contest Group

Comments:






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