[SCCC] NA Sprint CW W4EF HP

[Michael Tope]

                     NA Sprint CW Contest - September

Call: W4EF
Operator(s): W4EF
Station: W4EF

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 3:32

Summary:
  Band  QSOs  Op Time
---------------------
    80:   13   00:14
    40:   97   01:35
    20:  117   01:43
---------------------
Total:  227    Mults = 40  Total Score = 9,080

Club: Southern California Contest Club

Team: SCCC #1

Comments:

Rig: Omni 6+ & Drake L-7
Antennas:  20M  Spiderbeam @45'
      Inverted-V @40'
40M  Inverted-V @40'
      1/4 Wave Vertical
80M  Inverted-V @40'
      1/4 Wave Vertical

Not one of my better efforts. Bad weather didn't help matters. I drove 
through rain on the way from LA to the high desert. It wasn't raining 
when I got to the Antelope Valley, but that didn't last for long. 
Thunderstorm static on 20 meters wasn't too bad at the start, but I 
started getting severe rain static on the Spiderbeam maybe 15 or 20 
minutes into the contest. It wasn't present on the inverted-v, so I 
ended up transmitting on the Spiderbeam and listening on the inverted-v 
by manually switching with a B&W rotary coax switch. This worked okay, 
but threw off my rhythm a bit.

Thunderstorm static on 40 meters was really bad and by then then 
lightning was getting too close for comfort. A sensible person would 
have pulled the plug at that point, but I somehow convinced myself that 
I didn't feel like being sensible so I pressed on. By that time I was 
starting to really feel bad physically. Between the physical discomfort 
and the static crashes I was asking for an embarassing number of 
repeats. When I hit 80 it was more of the same only worse. After I had 
to ask N0AX to repeat his number 3 or 4 times, I decided that nobody was 
being served by my continued participation, least of all me, so I shut 
off the rig and went straight to bed with about 30 minutes left to go.

The good news is that the Spiderbeam (rain static nonwithstanding) 
seemed to be a big improvement over the 20M inverted-V. Hopefully things 
will go better in February. See you all then.

73, Mike W4EF...........


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