[RTTY] JARTS AA5AU Single Op HP

[Don Hill AA5AU]

                  JARTS WW RTTY Contest

Call: AA5AU
Operator(s): AA5AU
Station: AA5AU

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: Louisiana
Operating Time (hrs):  42
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Pts   Mults
-------------------------
   80:   36    73    14
   40:  150   362    54
   20:  464  1186    86
   15:  552  1454    94
   10:  571  1574    91
-------------------------
Total: 1773  4649   339  Total Score = 1,576,011

Club: 

Comments:

I had two main goals in this contest.  I wanted to break the World Record.  But
it doesn't do much good to break the record if you don't win the contest.  So my
ultimate objectives were to win the contest and set a new World Record.

I broke the record with 5 hours to go in the contest.  Early Sunday morning,
everything slowed down to a crawl and I didn't know if the record was reachable.
But another strong run of EU on 10 and 15 helped on Sunday.

I had some equipment failure during the contest, but luckily they didn't slow me
down.  My Yaesu rotor control failed Saturday afternoon.  Luckily, I use the
same rotor and control box for my WARC beam so was able to switch it out by
pulling the rotor cable plug out of one and into the other.  Then about an hour
later, the LED's on my "B" radio dimmed almost to nothing when it was keyed.  I
grabbed one of two spare power supplies (with power cable already attached) and
switched out the supply.  Sure enough, that was the problem.  Luck and
preparation saved me there.  My spare TS-870 is still in the shop for repair so
glad it wasn't the radio.

I had to stop an hour Saturday evening when I developed stomach cramps.  Guess I
ate too much junk food during the first 24 hours of the contest.  Guess there's
not much to prepare for something like that.  Ended up taking a total of 6+
hours off in three separate breaks.  Guess I'm getting too old for these 48 hour
iron-man events.  But I love not having to keep track of off-times.

Band condx were not as good as CQ/RJ but they were consistent, with the K going
from 2 to 3 then back to 2.  10 meters was the best band and I tried to stay
there as long as possible.  15 was good and 20 was fair and got the 20M EU
opening at 0700Z on Sunday, but there weren't a lot of EU stations to work and
the JA path did not open at the same time which sometimes happens.

I missed JA0 on all bands and only worked one JA9.  I missed a lot of JA call
areas on various bands.  No VE1 or VE5 worked.  I saw two HS0 stations S&P on 15
meters but never could catch them.  A45WD called me on 3 bands which was nice. 
5H1HS called me on 20M.  EN7Z had by far the strongest signal of anyone. It
didn't matter what time of day or night, they were booming through.

40 and 80 meters were noisy the first night and not very busy the second night
so I didn't do very well there.  Listened for JA's around 3525 khz but didn't
hear any.  KH6ND was loud on 80.

I worked 10 JA stations on 40M, 33 on 20M, 55 on 15M and 73 on 10M.  It was
great to see this much activity for their contest.  I wish I could have worked
more JA's on 20, but the path never really came in.

Thanks to everyone for the QSO's and especially the 5-band contacts with: 
AD6WL, K0CIE, KB7N, KE0LY, KH6ND, KU1CW, KY5G, N2WK, N6EU, N6PC, N7OR, N7UVH,
VA3DX, VA7XX, VE3BUC, VE6YR, VE7ASK, W1ZT, W4EUF, W6RLL, W8UL, W9HLY, WA1EHK and
WA1Z.

I'm quite pleased at the outcome.  I guess KH6ND's score will determine if I
have a shot at the win.  He was doing very well when I saw him and I saw him a
lot.  But this contest is over and it's time to move on.  WAE is next month and
I'm ready to welcome the new rules with another all-out effort.

73, Don AA5AU
http://www.aa5au.com
http://www.geocities.com/writelog