[SECC] WPX SSB notes

[ku8e at bellsouth.net]

Thanks Dave...

Some observations fron NQ4I :

Rick told me before the contest that this is the best 20 meter setup he has ever had. He was sure right about that !!! The 5/5/5 stack is a killer. Condx
to EU were not as good as past WPX's (i.e NO EU opening over the pole during the night time hours) but I was still able to keep a good rate running US and working other DX that called in. Activity was really good from UA9/0 at night and a little later in the night I had some good rate running VK/ZL. I don't ever recall working so many VK/ZL's in a DX contest before. There have to be between 50-75 of them in the log. I even got all the VK call areas as multipliers after VK8AV called me Sunday morning on LP. My guess is that more than 50% of my QSO's were with W/VE but hey..... they all count don't they ???

Best time to run EU seemed to be from 2 pm - 5 pm. The morning opening was very short... I guess everyone had headed up to 15 meters. I decided to sleep in some on Sunday morning since there didn't seem to be much competition from anyone doing SO/20 meters and I wasn't going to break any records this year because of the poor condx. I ended up taking 16 hours off but it would of been nice to have a couple of those back so I could of broken 2K QSO's.... Oh well...

Thanks again to Rick and GeorgeAnn for their hospitality !!!!

                              Jeff KU8E







> 
> From: "David L. Thompson" <thompson at mindspring.com>
> Date: 2003/03/30 Sun PM 10:44:06 EST
> To: "secc" <secc at contesting.com>
> Subject: [SECC] WPX SSB notes
> 
> Congrats to K4BAI (NQ4I) and KU8E for their efforts as SOSB on 15 and 20.  I
> think Jeff's score
> is probably a record for GA on 20 single band.  I remember years ago that we
> almost had no chance to beat the Long Island stations (mainly K2HFX).  I
> worked both and found NQ4I when I fired up W4BCV too.  John was running
> stations I could just hear with my beam stuck east.
> 
> Paul and his team had NF4A running smoothly from St. George's Island
> Florida.  I worked Paul on both 20 and 40 (his back scatter was 59+10 on
> 20).  I heard N4NX (also worked), W4NTI, and WB4SQ.
> 
> With my beam stuck East I worked every African in the contest.  When the
> rains came the rotor
> started to move again.  I worked 104 QSOs between log checking the CQ 160
> and trying to re-hook the rigs for SO2R.  One of my FT 980's decided to only
> output 20 watts rather than 100 but I cured that but I also had some PC
> problems.  I got the message about an unwanted script running so I followed
> Norton's instructions and cancelled that and re-booted but lost about half
> the QSOs in writelog although I do have the calls, times, and dates in my
> back up log.
> 
> Listened on 160 but only heard a few local Dx stations.  So I spent a little
> on 15 and 20.  Even with the beam east I worked BW3/UA, and a number of
> JA's.  Late Saturday with the beam swinging again I was able to work most DX
> on 40 first call.  John OR3T said I was about the loudest at his QTH.
> Rarest Dx was SU9NC and ST0RY.   On 75 the Europeans that were loud were
> loud (EA, CQ9, TM5C, IR4T) but the rest were much weaker than they had been
> in the ARRL SSB.  3V8BB was the rarest DX.  Boy was HC8N loud on 75 and 40!
> 
> I noticed that 20 was down somewhat on Sunday about 2000Z to Europe.  Seems
> the W1's were getting the skip.  I still usually got the stations on one
> call.  I did a spin thru 10 meters where VK4WPX told me I was +20DB at his
> QTH.  He was S8 here.  I listen off and on for the Far east but only heard
> JA7 and DU9RG weakly on back scatter.  So I went to 40 to try out my SO2R.
> Both FT 980's worked well.  I will hook up my two FT-920's for perhaps the
> SP contest in a couple of weeks.  Now if I can just get my beam to swing
> back to NE HI.
> 
> With USA to USA now counting 1 point the QSO count seems to have increased.
> The SF reached 155 after being below 100 for the week before but the weak JA
> opening tells us the cycle is headed down hill.
> 
> Again Congrats to John and Jeff
> 
> 73 Dave K4JRB
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> SECC mailing list
> SECC at contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/secc
>