ARRL DX Contest, SSB
Call: VE6TL
Operator(s): VE6TL
Station: VE6TL
Class: SOAB(A) HP
QTH: Calgary
Operating Time (hrs): 25
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 0 0
80: 9 9
40: 34 23
20: 215 83
15: 275 72
10: 69 27
-------------------
Total: 602 214 Total Score = 386,484
Club: ALBERTA CLIPPERS
Comments:
With all those sunspots, I thought condx would be much better. I actually did
worse than last year's score and (by about 70,000 points) operated an 2 more
hours this year than last - thanks to the high velocity solar wind. Having
only a 40' tower in a city lot in the middle of the RF black hole of Alberta
must be experienced to be appreciated. The only run I could manage came at the
end on Sunday, when I worked about 50 JAs in about 90 minutes. I tried running
all over the place but kept getting run over and no spots. So it was 98% S&P.
Still, there were a few great moments that made it all worthwhile. Working not
one but two ZLs (ZL1BYZ and ZL3IO) on 10m was a first from this QTH (my
previous best DX on 10m was Argentina - over the past 6 years). It was also a
first hearing and then working Indonesia on 15m. I also managed to work V51YJ
who was only running 100W and I could barely hear him.
So the main differences this year over last:
1) This year had zero propagation on 160 and almost none on 80 and 40m.
2) This year I couldn't run Europe at all on any band.
3) This year I actually had more Qs on 15m than 20m, with over 800 Q's on 20m
last year and a quarter of that this year.
4) Last year I only had 1 QSO on 10m and this year I set a new personal high.
(The past 6 years have had nothing but static or the occasional sporadic E
propagation on 10m - being lucky to work Arizona.)
5) This year I ran assisted whereas in the past I didn't use the spots. So my
score should have been much, much better than last year. My mults were
actually higher (214 to 153), so that helped quite a bit. This was almost
entirely due to 15 and 10m.
One last comment. I noticed that the number of mistakes on the spotting
network was HUGE - maybe up to 20%?. I've never seen so many wrong calls -
which makes me wonder if people were deliberately doing this. Instead, I
believe it was probably due to poor condx either from the aurora or by the
bands just being too crowded. I wouldn't be surprised if many people's logs
were well over 10% bad calls. It would be interesting to compare the error
rate of this year's results with previous years - if the judges have the data
available to them.
CU in the next one,
JERRY VE6TL
Calgary, AB
Rig: FTDX-5000MP
Amp: FL-7000 (about 400W)
Ant: TH6DXX @40' (10-15-20m), BigIR Vertical (40-80m)
App: N1MM Logger
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
______________________________________________
3830 mailing list
3830@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/3830
|