[SECC] Fwd: WPX SSB AA4LR SOAB LP

[Bill Coleman]

                   CQWW WPX Contest, SSB - 2020

Call: AA4LR
Operator(s): AA4LR
Station: AA4LR

Class: SOAB LP
QTH: Georgia
Operating Time (hrs): 24

Summary:
Band  QSOs
------------
 160:    0
  80:   27
  40:  120
  20:  184
  15:   45
  10:   24
------------
Total:  400  Prefixes = 286  Total Score = 243,958

Club: South East Contest Club

Comments:

Antennas:
A3S/A743 at 15m high(40-10m)
Shunt-fed 15m tower (80m, 160m)

Equipment:
K3+KSYN3A with KAT3 running 100w

Comments:

With all the social distancing and church service cancelled, I made the trip to the Gwinnett QTH to operate this contest. I looked at my personal records and found that my best was actually in 1991 with a score around 700,000. I thought maybe I could take a stab at that. 

Well, 1991 was very different conditions. In that log, I was working stations on 10m until 0400z. 

Conditions this year were pretty awful. 10m did open both Saturday and Sunday, but only to South America. 15m was the same way. The only European on 15m I heard was CR6K, but he couldn't hear me. Actually, there was a lot of that.

With not much on 10 or 15m, everyone is crushed down into 20m during the daylight hours, which makes for very tough going. And 15m opened very late on Saturday.

Almost entirely S & P, just a couple of answered CQs. That made for the low rate of about 16 Q / hour.

I had a lot of time to think between Qs. I was seeing some SWR shifts on 40 and 15m, which leads me to believe that the A3S/A743 has an issue. It's been up for 19 years and it likely needs to be taken down and serviced. And the feed lines probably need to be renewed. That's going to be the project for this year. 

I did accomplish one thing. I was using the DVK on the K3 to send messages. It was awkward to press the buttons on the K3 -- moving back and forth between the keyboard and the K3. During one slow period, I figured out how to program N1MM to trigger the DVK messages from the function keys. Made my weekend a lot easier.

I do have one question. I've had this callsign for 36 years. There were a number of times I was answered as DD4LR. That would make sense if I sent the prefix as "Alpha Alpha", because that sounds a lot like "Delta Delta” -- but I even had it happen a half dozen times using the DVK memory that starts "America America".... What the heck?

I think the next time I do this contest during sunspot minima, I'm going to use the Amp.... It will be a lot more fun.

Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/

Bill Coleman, AA4LR, PP-ASEL        Mail: aa4lr at arrl.net
Web: http://boringhamradiopart.blogspot.com
Quote: "Not within a thousand years will man ever fly!"
            -- Wilbur Wright, 1901

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