[NCC] N2CU ARRL DX SO Unlimited HP

[Tom Williams]

ARRL DX Contest, CW
 
Call: N2CU
Operator(s): N2CU
Station: N2CU
 
Class: SO Unlimited HP
QTH: NY
Operating Time (hrs): 27
 
Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:   52    37
   80:  101    56
   40:  173    82
   20:  583   104
   15:  608   113
   10:   85    54
-------------------
Total: 1602   446  Total Score = 2,143,476
 
Club: North Coast Contesters
 
Comments:
 
I'm usually at the W2FU M/M but we didn't have enough ops for it this time
so I
stayed home to play a little with my modest station. I started 4 hours late,
trying my favorite band first (160m). Conditions were punk. 80m was not much
better, but 40m showed some promise. I didn't stay up late nor get up early,
so
I missed some prime grayline. Saturday started by sweeping each band before
I
decided it was time to get the QSO total up by running. That worked pretty
well
but with many stations zero beat with each other, it was difficult to pick
any
single station out. As the contest wore on, I got better at it.
 
Questionable moments were working V73NS who was not giving a power. I put in
0
since he sent nothing. Also worked HZ1DG who sent 5NN 5--------- (a string
of
dashes). Is that 50, 500 or 5000? Maybe neither of those stations will send
in
a log and I won't lose the QSO/mult.
 
I worked only 20 Europeans on 160m. Bummer. Overall, the most worked
countries
were DL(144), I(99), OK(68) and JA(61). 22 six-band QSOs (6Y1D, 8P5A, 9A1A,
CR3W, CR6K, CU4DX, D4C, E7DX, EI7M, KP4KE, NP2X, OE3K, OL7M, OM5ZW, PJ2T,
T48K,
TI5W, TO7A, V26M, V31TP, VP2MWA and ZF1A). 14 five-banders (4O3A, CR3A,
HG6N,
HI3Y, KP2M, NP2P, P40W-QRP, P40XM, PJ4X, PS2T, SK3W, SN5Q, VP5K and XE2ST).
Thanks guys!
 
About 2 weeks before the contest I started getting arcing in my amplifier.
After doing a little thinking about it, my amp was designed when the FCC
limit
was 1kW INPUT power. That's about 600 watts output. I've been running 1 kW
output, after all it has a pair of 3-500Z's. Well, apparently not all the
components can handle the higher voltage and power I was running for the
last
10 years!
 
By the way, I echo W4VIC's comments on pileup behavior.
 
Thank you all our international friends for their support of this contest. 
 
Elecraft K3, Drake L7 @ 700w., TH6DXX @ 15m (that's a trapped tribander for
you
young guys), 40m Delta Loop, 80m wire vertical, 160m Inverted L, N1MM
Classic
 
73, Tom N2CU <><