[RTTY] AA5AU FEB 2004 NAQP

[Don Hill AA5AU]

Looks like 3830 is broken.

It was a heck of a contest but I didn't think it was anything special until I
hit 40 & 80 after my dinner break.  Wow!

I worked 50 stations the first 30 minutes after my break starting at 0130Z and
averaged over 70 QSO/hr. for the last 3 hours.  I was glad I took a break when I
did as usually I work 10 hours straight.  Although signals were not as strong on
80 as they were in WPX, there was very low noise here.

I had improved the station in two ways since WPX.  I moved my fixed tribander on
tower #2 up onto the mast holding my WARC beam and for the first ever, had two
rotatable antennas on the high bands.  I also purchased a SixPak antenna switch
which allowed me to switch the two tribanders back and forth as needed.  I used
to have to switch 4 manual antenna switches in order to swap antennas.  Now the
SixPak sits directly in front of me so I know which antenna is where.  Sweet!
It was weird working two rotors instead of one but I got used to it.

The coolest QSO was when YC2ECG called me on 15 meters even though he wasn't a
multiplier.  AH6HH called in on 40 meters for my last multiplier and only HI
station in the log.  I heard someone working KL7IWC on 40 but couldn't hear him.
J88DR was a nice surprise and was XE1XOE.  Great to see Dean as 8P2K on 4 bands
and Peter 8P9NX.  Surprised not to see ZF2NT.  I saw him spotted on CW earlier
Saturday morning.  The VE's were out in force but did not work VE4 or VE5.  I
think WriteLog was scoring NP3D as PR even though he was in NY so I might lose 3
multipliers.  I did work NP4BM on 40 though.

10 meters was really bad with mainly VE and west coast USA coming through and an
occasional W1.  I did work WE9V on back scatter for my only Midwestern QSO.
Because 10 was so bad, 20 had to be the money band for Q's and it was.  But I
had more mults on 40.

There was a great deal of mult-moving going on this time.  It was great to see.
I tried moving every mult I could to bands I thought would be open.  Most
worked, some did not.  Many tried to move me and I was happy to go.  Thanks to
those that moved to other bands for me.  And thanks to everyone for
participating.  It was a great deal of fun, especially those last 3.5 hours on
40 & 80.

It was an all-time personal best for me, by a lot.  I had 88 more QSO's and 10
more multipliers than last February and the biggest difference was 80 meters
with 38 more Q's and 10 more mults.

AA5AU
Single Op, 100 watts
SO2R
WriteLog beta version 10.46E

Band	QSO	Mult

80	120	45
40	177	53
20	193	50
15	152	49
10	 36	14
-----------------
	678	211

Score 143,058

73, Don AA5AU