North American QSO Party, SSB
Call: AA4LR
Operator(s): AA4LR
Station: AA4LR
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: GA
Operating Time (hrs): 10
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 35 18
80: 155 36
40: 101 35
20: 253 41
15: 64 17
10: 48 8
-------------------
Total: 656 155 Total Score = 101,680
Club: South East Contest Club
Team: SECC Team 2
Comments:
Equipment:
Elecraft K2/100 with KAT-100
Kenwood TS-430S with AT-250
K1KP-style voice keyer (1 message)
Homebrew SO2R switchbox
Antennas:
Cushcraft A3S at 15m (10m, 15m, 20m)
125 foot doublet at 10m (40m, 160m)
Shunt-fed 15m tower (80m)
R7000 (second radio)
Comments:
This contest got off to a pretty good start. Certainly better than last August,
when there were almost no signals on 10m at the start. Ripped off 58 Qs in the
the first 51 minutes when the phone rang. It was my sister-in-law. She was
calling to see if my 13-year-old nephew was there. Now, I'm at home alone. Turns
out she left him on the front porch and ran off to get gas. The story just gets
weirder from there. Suffice to say I had to take an unplanned 40 minute time
out. This probably cost me a few mults.
Shifted down to 20m at 2000z and proceeded to have a 91 and then 86 hours, with
a few second radio QSOs in the mix. At this point in the sunspot cycle, I should
have moved to 20m earlier, and worked the second radio hard to pull up mults on
10 and 15m. Instead, I S & Ped 10 and 15m ahead of time.
For the 22, 23 and 00z hours, bounced back and forth between 20m and 40m,
finally taking a time off for 30 minutes at 0050z. Rates were pretty good, but I
did lose about 9 minutes in this hour due to a mis-timing of my break. At the
half-way point, I had more than 400 Qs and thought I was on my way to a new
personal best.
40m is always a tough band for me. Previously, I had used a 1/4 wave sloper on
the tower at the 12m spot. However, this antenna has developed a problem and
currently acts as if there's a broken connection. So, I had to use the 125 foot
doublet. It's ok, but it isn't in the best orientation (besides being a bit low)
Unfortunately, 40m did not stay short very long.
Jumping to 80m in the 01z hour was rewarded with pretty good rates. 80m was
incredibly noisy. Even with the "secret weapon" of the shunt-fed tower with 25
1/4 wave radials, it was often hard to run on this band. Lots of folks had moved
to 160m early, just as in the CW portion.
Spent almost an hour on 160m alone. That's a lot of time, considering I don't
have a 160m antenna. Used the 125 foot doublet through the Kenwood.
Overall, rates were pretty good. 20m was the money band, with 80m second. 40m
had good rates, if only it had been open longer.
Mults were not so easy to come by. The disturbed conditions made it difficult to
pass from band to band. I did manage to move Cort, K4WI (operating as NA4W) from
160m to 80m to get the AL multipler, but that was just about it. Only ended up
with 155 mults.
I worked only two people on my team: W4ATL I found on 40m, KU8E on 80m and 160m.
Never heard K4BAI, although I purposely tuned through the General portion of the
phone bands looking for him. Didn't hear a peep out of Dan W4NTI, either. Hope
you guys turned in big scores.
All in all, a great contest. I'm looking forward to the August running, and
planning several improvements.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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