[SCCC] W6PH (long narrative on CQWW CW)

[w6ph at aol.com]

It was a rough contest for me with the noise that I had to the northeast.  It was completely new and a surprise. .  I believe it was a power pole insulator arcing.  I was able to mitigate it somewhat by turning the beam 90 degrees to the noise.  It was particularly bad on 20 meters.  On the P3 the tops of the noise were about 40 db above my ambient noise level.  Off the side the noise was about 10 db above ambient.  I could not copy any complete call signs from Europe on 20m and relied on the cluster spots.  Most of them are reliable and kept my rate up.  Without the spots I would have been lucky to make 300 contacts.  I quit in frustration a couple of times and came back into the house but went back out hoping the noise was gone.  It wasn't.
 
Conditions:  I thought the low bands were spectacular.  I answered Europeans on 40 as if it was 20 meters.  In past contests it has always been a struggle to work the few that I can.  I was even heard in Europe on 80 meters which is real tough for my antenna.  Working 64 countries was unheard of in the past.  It was usually high 30's.  With very few exceptions I could work anyone I heard on 160.  If I didn't work them at first, I got them later.  It heartened me to work VP9I on 160-20.  I saw a VP9I spot for 15m that I couldn't hear but no one was calling on that frequency.
 
I thought conditions on 20 and 15 were better on Sunday than on Saturday.  That is purely subjective as I might have adjusted to the noise.  I did not work any Zone 14 or 15 on 15 meters.  I thought I was hearing CR5E for a token Zone 14 but the noise masked his signal.  I did not CQ at all because I would have been an alligator.  Until the last two hours when I pointed my 3L 20 yagi northwest which knocked the noise down enough for me to copy callers from Asia.  Even though it was Monday morning in JA, I got a fairly continuous run of JA's and other Asians calling in.  When I saw a spot for a JA on another frequency I was able to grab them on first call without losing my CQ frequency.  During the last 10 minutes a spot for T88PB (new mult) showed up.  My ratio was 2.5 Q per mult and I thought there might be a pile on him.  At 2358 I had not gotten any answers for two minutes and decided to go to that spot.  Unbelievably he was very loud and only a JA or two was calling him.  On the second call he responded to me and I put my last mult in the log at 2359:25.
 
My K3 and 1.3 Expert worked flawlessly.  All my antennas worked flawlessly and the rotators (four Ham-M's) all stayed on proper heading.  I can visually see most of the antennas from my operating position.  I have an FTDX3000 (Radio 2 bandmap) which I kept on a different band only to see spots on another band.  I picked up several mults that showed up on adjacent bands and made a quick QSY to pick them up.
 
I frequently did a quick look on 10 meters to see if there were any blips on the P3.  On Sunday around noon time I caught two blips.  One was CE3WW and the other was LU4HK.  I worked both of them and hung around to see if anything else would show up.  During that time I answered CQ's from K0RF and N6WM for three additional mults.  Those were the only contacts on 10m although I continued to check.  N6WIN worked a ZL on 10m.  I cannot work VK's or ZL's on 15 or 10 because the 14ers block my low angle signals in that direction.  I heard VK2GR on 20m LP but he was too weak in the noise to hear if he would be coming back to me and there were herds of evil east coasters calling.  I missed Zone 30 (and 29) on 20 meters.  Likewise I did not pursue any Africans as their signals were too weak to hear their response in the noise.
 
Sharon brought me sandwiches and refilled my coffee thermos frequently.  She has been very supportive of my contests.  Not so 40 years ago!
 
Despite the noise the conditions were so good that I had to stay with it.  I have never experienced such good conditions on the low bands from out here.  I never had to wait in line to work Europeans that I could hear.
 
Here are my numbers.  The left is the end and the right is half time.  33.6 hrs BIC
 
            Q     Z     C                                                   Q      Z      C
160     39    12   25                                        160    26     9     16
  80    132   24   64                                         80     80    21    46
  40    351   34  108                                        40   215    33    96
  20    594   32  116                                        20   239    29    78
  15    114   19    49                                        15     78    15    36
  10        4    4      3                                         10      0      0      0
         1234 125 365  =  1,678,740                          638  107  272  =  670,451
 
Statistically the second day was better and it felt better.  I wonder how much better it would have been without the noise.  I usually work a bunch of Asians with CQ's on 40m.  I couldn't do that this year.  I was down 130 contacts on 40m (alligator syndrome) from last year and down 150 contacts on 15m (conditions).
 
If you haven't hit the delete button yet, thanks for reading my post contest thoughts.
 
K3 Expert 1.3 Amp  WinTest  KM3T Cluster (filter designed by WA1Z)
 
160  66 ft sloper with coil in the middle below 20 yagi
  80  East and West 1/4 wave slopers below 40 and 15 yagis respectively
  40  40-2CD at 60 feet
  20  3L yagi at 60 feet (homebrew design on 22 ft boom)
  15  5L yagi at 60 feet (N8SM design)  he is SK falling from a tower
  10  5L yagi at 50 feet (Same design)
 
Four AB-577's is an area 150 feet x 130 feet
Shack is 12 feet x 12 feet that I stick built, electrical work by ex KN6LSG
 
73, Kurt W6PH  Lone Pine