Russian DX Contest
Call: K4XD
Operator(s): K4XD
Station: K4XD
Class: SO CW HP
QTH: Raleigh, NC
Operating Time (hrs): 6
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Countries Oblasts
----------------------------------------
160: 7 0 2 0
80: 20 0 10 0
40: 68 0 27 1
20: 55 0 24 5
15: 6 0 2 0
10:
----------------------------------------
Total: 156 0 65 6 Total Score = 44,233
Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club
Comments:
Part time effort for fun -- but the most fun was the last 30 minutes when the
bands finally opened to EU / RU! The rest of the time the conditions were
pretty weak here. When the QSB and QRN got to me, I went outside and finished
hooking up my ICE lightning protectors near the entrance to the shack. I put
coax suppressors in the K9AY and two RG-213 lines, and rotor cable suppressors
in the hexbeam rotor, K9AY control, and remote antenna switch control lines. I
used one of the ICE crossbars that clamps on top of the ground rod to mount the
suppressors. I still need to run my SPG in the shack out to this connection,
and then bond it to the house electric ground which fortunately is only 10 feet
away. I feel better. I really don't want to unplug all this stuff every time I
leave the shack, but I realize a direct hit will take out everything. Thanks
for overnighting the cables Joel!
Back to the 'test. I started out on 40M at 1200 Saturday, and it was the
American Bandscan. All US except one ZL and one KH6. Things were pretty slow
there so I hopped up to 20M at 1230 and S&P'd my way up the band. Weak signals
and QRN, yum. Anyone who thinks CW Skimmer is going to turn this murk into
click and log is dreaming. We need Ron Popeil's CW Magic Restorer for that.
After about an hour of that I was at 27 Q's and decided I'd had enough fun for
the morning. My wife and I went downtown and took in the Raleigh St. Patrick's
Day Parade -- just about everyone with a tractor, pickup truck and a business to
hawk was in the parade. I think next year we should have a float for the
Russian DX Contestants and enjoy the puzzled looks on the crowd's face as we
drive by with Morse code booming out of our hip-hop sound system. A nice Cajun
lunch and a cold Abita brand tuning oil won out over an afternoon of
Heil-assisted ear torture.
At 2000 I was back S&P'ing 20, not much new, then checked 15M and logged four
PY's. Yawn. 6V7E was booming on 20, that was a nice treat after the other
relatively mundane fare. Took some time off after an hour, then back at 2315
and got 4U1ITU on 40M, which was a new band-slot for me. ZS4TX was doing a
nice job on 40M too. I hit 100 Q's at 0115 (it was that kind of day), and
spent 0230-0330 straining through the static on 80M. That brought me to 120
Q's and time to call it a night. Checked 160M briefly but NBN (nothing but
noise).
Woke up at 1030, made some coffee, and hit 80M at 1047. Very little QRN, yay!
Picked up 7 Q's on 160M, just K/VE. At 1124 I went up to 20M and as it says at
the start of this, finally a band worth working! But only 30 mins left in the
contest. Lots of stations and pretty decent sounding too. I think the
propagation gods have a twisted sense of humor. Got 22 Q's in 35 minutes, I
know, hardly a barn burner, but all S&P and I had to wait in line. I am
keeping the advice to "move on quickly if you can't S&P right away" in mind,
and I didn't spend time on the weaker signals who didn't answer my first call.
I also took Bert's advice about "opening up the CW filter" to heart and went
with 800 Hz instead of my usual tactic of 250 Hz and less. It did seem to
help. I think if the noise level is very low, the narrow filter works well.
If the noise is bad, opening up the filter seems to reduce it. At least that's
the impression I had this morning. I guess the bottom line is keep twisting
knobs until you can copy!
That's it for this time gang, from the serial numbers I saw I know a lot of
folks did very well, so it was probably the operator and station more than
conditions, but I just found this one pretty slow going except at the end.
73,
Rowland K4XD
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