IARU HF World Championship
Call: WX0B
Operator(s): AD5Q
Station: WX0B
Class: SOABCW LP
QTH: Dallas
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Zones HQ Mults
-------------------------------------
160: 26 0 4 2
80: 115 0 9 6
40: 406 0 23 26
20: 712 0 30 35
15: 311 0 23 19
10: 41 0 6 4
-------------------------------------
Total: 1611 0 95 92 Total Score = 969,221
Club: DFW Contest Group
Comments:
While setting up for the contest, several lightning related issues became
apparent. Three of them were rotor boxes, and another 3 were USB ports on the
PC (and the USB port on a functioning rotor box). Way up the big tower, the
hairpin coil was blown on the top 20 (but not the Array Solutions balun).
Lastly, the CI/V port was blown on the run rig, the classic Icom 781.
None of these were show stoppers. Two of the rotor boxes were for the side
mounted rings on the rotating tower, which come into play when 20 & 40 are
open in different directions. The 3rd was for the lightweight Opti OBW10-5 on
the 40 ft crankup, which fortunately was stuck in its favorite direction: SE.
The missing inductance on the top 20 shifted the SWR higher in the band, but
was still only 1.4 on CW and usable in the stack. I had full use of the stacks
on 4 bands. We all need problems like that.
The blown CI/V presented more of an issue for a very automated station. So I
would manually switch the antennas, bandpass filters, and the frequency in the
software. One of the automatic amps also depend on this signal, and they are
completely out of sight from the operating position behind some obstacles. THAT
was the problem. We thought about substituting another radio Jay had at the
office, but a new harness would need to be made on short order for the
connection to the SO2R box. My Wintest LUA scripts would also be impacted, big
time. I decided to go low power.
Overall, things went pretty well. Band conditions were not so great. My biggest
problem was with the stations that CQ'ed in my face. With amazing regularity,
these were the HQ mults. I spent a LOT of time calling people that never did
even TRY to dig our puny barefoot signal (with stacked monobanders) out of the
noise. Who are these ops? From the beginning of the contest I was falling
behind in HQ mults (but not zone mults), struggling with 2nd radio contacts on
20 & 15. On 20, however, there was a 2nd and much better opening in the
evening and I got most of these guys in the log. On 15 there was no 2nd chance.
10 was horrible. No signals at all for the first 6 hours, then not so many
South Americans, and finally a 45 minute stateside run in the afternoon. I only
worked one zone 6 on 10 (Hi Pat!). In the evening I had no trouble running on
either 20 or 40. I ran the full 24 hours, since I never need to "ignore
mults" in my band map window: mine is usually blank (a rogue unassisted op
might have a problem here). The last 5 hours of the contest were a slow grind. A
JA run on 20 didn't happen at all, and the one on 40 was unimpressive. I never
did give up trying to get runs going on these bands, but alternated with brief
stateside runs on 80/160. Throughout the contest, I worked the 2nd radio really
hard. Lower rates permit that.
Roy -- AD5Q
Aspie Ducky Five QUACK!
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