CQ 160-Meter Contest, SSB
Call: VO1HE
Operator(s): VO1HE
Station: VO1MP
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: The Rock
Operating Time (hrs): 15
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 148 State/Prov = 29 Countries = 26 Total Score = 54,945
Club: East Coast Canada Contest Club
Comments:
I am jinxed for this contest.
Last Year:
Operated from VO1MP. I got laryngitis a few days beforehand, which never fully
went away, and had to bow out early. Conditions were good, from what I can
recall. The first night we had a snowstorm and I couldn't get back to the
station to operate for the remainder of the contest. Oh well, there was always
next year.
This Year:
Operated from VO1MP again. My health was good. Conditions were lousy. The first
night we got a snowstorm but I plugged my way through it. The snow static got so
bad that several times, there were absolutely no stations able to be copied;
even the European and US stations that were 20 over 9. For some reason, being
in between like we are, I could hear a lot of stations from both sides of the
Big Pond but they couldn't hear me. I was running about 1200W into a shunt-fed
tower but the strongest stations were deaf to my calls. When I ran, I found
that the only ones calling me were much weaker than the QRM that surrounded me.
Also, if I called a relatively weak station, he came back to me on the first
call. The loud stations would mostly not even pause to hear me and, if they
did, made very little attempt to pull me out. I guess, being so densely packed
in on the continents, they have a quantum leap in QRM compared to me, with only
VO1TA on the air from here that I could tell.
Anyway, I bested my score from last year but it was a struggle. The second
night I went back up to the Gus's after getting a wash and a nap. I brought a
little digital voice recorder, recorded my CQ message and held it up to the mic
for an hour with 3 responses, one of whom was VO1TA passing by. Conditions
hadn't improved so I decided to pack it in. There's always next year.
Next year:
I don't know. I'm not a fan of mono-band, mono-mode contests because, once
you've worked everyone you can hear and that can hear you, you've got nowhere
left to go. My main focus was working new countries on 160 and the resultant
static from the inevitable snowstorm on this contest weekend makes that pretty
hard. I heard several stations in Oregon and California. I worked XE1RCS for a
new one. Who knows, maybe I'll get amnesia in the next 11 months and forget all
about the past 2 years.
Much thanks to Gus and Kay for their hospitality.
Rig: FT1000MP Field
Amp: Alpha 87A
Antenna: Shunt-fed Tower
Software: N1MM 7.1.7
Thanks for the Qs and CU in the next one.
73 -- Paul VO1HE
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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