ARRL DX Contest, CW
Call: K2PS
Operator(s): K2PS
Station: K2PS
Class: SOSB/10 LP
QTH: United States - Mary
Operating Time (hrs):
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160:
80:
40:
20: 6 5
15: 87 47
10: 176 67
-------------------
Total: 176 67 Total Score = 35,376
Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club
Comments:
Well that was ugly. I was hoping to reprise my terrific experiences from the
recent CQWW and ARRL 10 Meter contests by doing a single band 10 meter, LP
effort. I watched the ups and downs of the solar flux predictions, hoping
against hope that the once-forecast spike would again raise its pretty little
head. But alas, no. It was a tough slog. Saturday was bad, Sunday was much
worse. My 4-element 40-foot high yagi wasn't sufficient to make an impact this
time around. The low antenna works well with high flux, but the weekend only
offered a 104-105 reading, just not good enough.
I did manage to work a bunch of EU stations Saturday, but mostly the KW sort.
Scanning the band with the beam at 50 degrees all morning Sunday was an
exercise in frustration, with only a couple of CT and EA stations to be
logged. I did manage to snag JA3YBK Sunday, but strangely had him peaking some
60 degrees south of the normal NW bearing. Is this the late day counterpart to
the early morning EU skew to the east?
One surprising finding - in my boredom, I decided to see if I could work a
station or two on 15 with my 10M antenna. Incredibly, it worked! The tuner on
my Icom 756II handled it with no problem, and I found that I could work stations
pretty easily there, and even worked a few on 20. Who needs a tribander? The
noise on 40 was huge, so I didn't even try to put out a signal there. Let's
not get crazy here. But I managed to work 47 countries there on 15, mostly on
first call. Pretty cool. And sadly, I'm sure I didn't miss anything on 10
while I was away having fun on 15.
So live and learn. I'll have to be ready to change plans in the future when
conditions don't look to favor 10 meters, and join up with W3DQ or whomever.
73, Pete, K2PS/3 in DC
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
|