[RTTY] AA5AU 2004 ANARTS Score

[Don Hill]

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

Class: SOST HP
QTH: LA
Operating Time (hrs): 30
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs   Pts   Mults
--------------------------
   80:    8     20     6
   40:   87    880    40
   20:  494   7727    93
   15:  294   4346    82
   10:   36    312    14
--------------------------
Total:  919  13285   235  Continents = 6  Total Score
= 18,733,250

That was a lot of fun.  I started out just to "put in
a few hours".  But with DX conditions in good shape, I
got more serious.  Sunday morning when I saw my score
go over 12M, I thought there would be a chance at the
USA record so I started digging a little deeper.

When multipliers starting being worth more that 100k
points each, I worked real hard chasing them.  I also
tried moving a few stations to 10 and that worked
about half the time.  I could have maximized my score
if I had moved a W6 & W7 from 40 to 80 and if I hadn't
missed the VK/JA opening on 40M Sunday morning.  I
stayed up until past 0730Z (2:30 a.m. local) Sunday
drinking beer working EU & JA on 20M.  That was fun!

The most memorable moment of the contest was breaking
the USA/JA pileup on XV1X Sunday morning on 20M.  He
was very weak but decent copy and the pileup was big. 
I tried not to be too obtrusive, but I wasn't making
it through.  Once I saw N5JR make a contact, off came
the gloves.  I jumped in with both feet and was his
next contact.  Sometimes being "nice" doesn't get the
job done.

I don't recall the last time I saw such a good path to
Asia on 15 meters in my morning time.  9V1UV,
9M2/G3ZFE, YC2ECG & YB0WWW were all booming in.

15 meters was strange in a good way.  EU signals
either came in over the north pole or from due east. 
Short path is 30-45 degrees from here but that's not
where the signals were coming from.  Late in the
contest I turned the beam to JA (340 degrees) and
still had EU stations call me with good signals well
past their sunset.  15 meters is what really made this
contest a lot of fun.  I don't know when the next time
we will see 15 this good in a RTTY contest, so I
wanted to enjoy it while I could.  I left one radio on
15 for the last 11 hours of the contest.

The most fun was Sunday when I was CQ'ing on 15 and
S&P on 20M.  There were lots of signals on 20 and I
picked up stations all along the way by using the
Bandmap in WriteLog to map stations.  Then on
subsequent passes, I would look in between the
stations I had previously mapped to find new stations.
 That is real contesting!

Having a good effort gave me a lot of confidence in my
new station layout.  It was very comfortable and
everything worked well despite not having any new
antennas up yet.  I didn't blow anything up and both
AL-80B's sang at 500 watts each with no problem (still
haven't got the PW1 back from repair).

In hindsight, I could have done better.  But I didn't
plan to operate this one full-time.  In order to do
well, several things have to happen at my QTH.  15
meters has to be long and it was.  I have to have a
good path into EU on 20M right after their sunrise and
during/after their sunset and that happened.  Weather
plays an important role as well.  Being on the Gulf
Coast we have a lot of thunderstorms in the summer.
The thunderstorms have to stay away and they did.  And
when it's cloudy & overcast, I seem to have less noise
than when the sun is shining.  It was overcast most of
the weekend during the daylight hours.  So all things
that needed to happen did happen.  And sometimes
things work out this way.

I wish I could have pulled more weak EU stations out
on 15 and 20 but my antennas are not big enough or
high enough (yet) to do that.  And I wish there had
been more VK stations.  I kept a beam pointed west
when the band was open, but it yielded only a couple
of VK's.

Thanks to everyone for the contacts and especially
those that moved bands, or at least tried.

73, Don AA5AU