ARRL DX Contest, CW
Call: K3CR
Operator(s): LZ4AX
Station: K3CR
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: State College, PA
Operating Time (hrs): 45.5
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 77 43
80: 514 76
40: 1305 98
20: 1503 111
15: 927 99
10: 34 15
-------------------
Total: 4360 442 Total Score = 5,765,448
Club: North Coast Contesters
Comments:
Well, that was it. This was the swan song for the big K3CR contest station. With
WA3FET approaching retirement, we decided to begin dismantling the station this
spring and the antenna test range will be transferred to another Penn State
division in the summer. The ARRL CW was our last contest.
Saying I feel sad about it is quite an understatement. The station has become
an integral part of Jim's and my lives. Built in the late 90's by NW3Z and
WA3FET and with some add-ons later (TU W3TX), the station currently holds the
US SOABHP records in CQWW CW and CQWPX CW and the second highest score in ARRL
DX CW. I really feel fortunate for being able to drive this monster for the
last 16 years. After more than a hundred contests, hundreds of tower climbs,
countless hours of maintenance work and thousands of miles travelled to get to
the station, it's time to say enough and move on.
The ARRL CW traditionally has been a tough one for us. It is the only contest
that I had to quit several times because of technical problems. The usual snow
at that time of the year makes any maintenance work nearly impossible. Cannot
count how many times had to leave the car stuck on the farm road and walk
through the snow to get to the station. Last year was a nice exception with
virtually no snow and this seemed to be even better, with nice sunny weather
and temperatures in the 60s on Friday. Climate change, eh?
Got to the station very late on Thursday night totally exhausted. The previous
5 years I was driving from Boston and had no trouble getting to work after the
7-hour long drive. Now we live in Atlanta and this drive is a different animal
...
Getting there so tired was quite of a bummer, as I was planning on replacing
the station computer that was giving me troubles in CQWW that evening. Quick
check of the station suggested a single band effort on either 20 or 15. My head
was feeling like Big Ben, so there was nothing much else to do but go back to
town, get some sleep and hope for the best. In the morning that really turned
out to be the case. The weather was super nice, everything was coming along
very smoothly and life seemed so beautiful. The only holdup was having to climb
twice one of the towers because of my own stupidity. So there I was, on the top
of the 200 ft tower realizing I can't do anything. It's like getting up there
and discovering you have the wrong size tool or you just dropped both nuts ...
Anyway, at that moment I felt the Force very weak in me and just got down on
the ground and untied the damned rope off. Everything else went together as it
should and the station was 100% operational 3 hours before the contest. Even
had time to run back to town and get some groceries.
The contest started great with good runs, although I could feel the Earth
magnet got broken again. The signals on 40 were somewhat hollow and all
Northern EU and most Russians had the distinctive flutter. While picking up
mults on 20 Friday night, had to beam east to work KH6. Similarly, Saturday
morning on 40 JAs were coming from 240 degrees on 40 meters. Nothing heard from
SE Asia that morning on 40 but the band was very good to EU until 10Z. 80 and
160 were a bit noisy on the first night but generally good. That wasn't
particularly exciting as we are quite deaf towards Europe on 160. The NE
beverage is perfect for 80 but comes short on 160. Usually we extend it during
the winter on the neighboring farm land but this year we decided not to do it
as I was LP in CQWW. In this category, the less you hear the less the pain is.
I did attempt several runs on 160 but didn't feel good about it and limited
myself only to S&P on this band. Now looking at the scores, I realize this
was a mistake but you cannot avoid making a mistake or two somewhere along the
way.
I anticipated 10 to be the other critical band and feared it would suddenly
open and I would miss it. Kept checking it often but it didn't. Besides several
LU's and D4C worked everything I heard there.
Sunday morning I started loosing concentration and felt that I should take a
break. The long drive on Thursday and a whole working day on Friday evidently
were taking their toll. The alternative was to bite my upper lip and go to a
zombie mode. That ain't much fun and what I wanted to do in this last contest
was to have fun. Stopped a bit earlier as I should have to leave some time on
40 and look for SE Asia mults. That didn't really work out as I overslept.
Luckily, got up exactly when 20 was trying to open, so it wasn't a big loss.
The extra hour of sleep, though, came in quite handy. Didn't feel tired until
the end of the contest.
Most of the contest I felt great and enjoyed it tremendously. A lot of familiar
calls, friends and people who I never met in person but worked hundreds of times
in the contests. And many of my fellow LZ countrymen who dropped in a call to
say hi. Thank you, guys!
Few memorable things: K1LZ saying hello from JE1CKA (hmmm, is he building a
station there that I can use in 2 weeks?), LZ2HM telling me on the air he just
got a baby daughter, the extremely well behaved pile-up on the QRP 5W1SA that
restored my faith in humanity, calls from 5R8SV, TZ5XR and SU9JG, UA9BA calling
in on 15 for a new mult way past his sunset, LP QSO on 40 with VK3GK who was
running 5 watts.
Congratulations to K1ZZ, W1UE, N5DX and my local benchmarks AA3B and K3WW. It
is quite cozy in the top 3, ain't it?
And finally, I'm greatly indebted to Jim, WA3FET for everything during all
these years. Thanks, Jim!
We will be visiting the in-laws in Yokohama with KM4DAY during ARRL SSB. We'll
try her KX3 if it can throw all the way to the West Coast then.
73, Alex LZ4AX
Cabrillo Statistics (Version 10g) by K5KA & N6TV
http://bit.ly/cabstat
CALLSIGN: K3CR
CONTEST: ARRL-DX-CW
CATEGORY-OPERATOR: SINGLE-OP
CATEGORY-TRANSMITTER: ONE
OPERATORS: LZ4AX
-------------- Q S O R a t e S u m m a r y ---------------------
Hour 160 80 40 20 15 10 Rate Total Pct
--------------------------------------------------------------------
0000 0 0 146 0 0 0 146 146 3.3
0100 0 0 90 12 0 0 102 248 5.7
0200 0 52 20 16 0 0 88 336 7.7
0300 0 45 20 0 0 0 65 401 9.2
0400 28 0 51 0 0 0 79 480 11.0
0500 7 77 0 0 0 0 84 564 12.9
0600 16 48 15 0 0 0 79 643 14.7
0700 0 0 137 0 0 0 137 780 17.9
0800 0 0 111 0 0 0 111 891 20.4
0900 4 1 76 0 0 0 81 972 22.3
1000 1 18 12 6 0 0 37 1009 23.1
1100 0 2 7 145 0 0 154 1163 26.7
1200 0 0 0 208 0 0 208 1371 31.4
1300 0 0 0 115 77 0 192 1563 35.8
1400 0 0 0 0 180 0 180 1743 40.0
1500 0 0 0 0 164 2 166 1909 43.8
1600 0 0 0 3 98 8 109 2018 46.3
1700 0 0 0 121 5 0 126 2144 49.2
1800 0 0 0 78 23 0 101 2245 51.5
1900 0 0 0 50 19 0 69 2314 53.1
2000 0 0 0 34 14 0 48 2362 54.2
2100 0 0 91 0 0 0 91 2453 56.3
2200 0 0 93 0 1 0 94 2547 58.4
2300 0 9 29 31 1 0 70 2617 60.0
0000 0 0 19 68 0 0 87 2704 62.0
0100 0 18 37 0 0 0 55 2759 63.3
0200 1 14 27 0 0 0 42 2801 64.2
0300 7 54 0 0 0 0 61 2862 65.6
0400 8 56 0 1 0 0 65 2927 67.1
0500 1 58 7 1 0 0 67 2994 68.7
0600 4 21 52 0 0 0 77 3071 70.4
0700 0 5 69 0 0 0 74 3145 72.1
0800 0 3 31 0 0 0 34 3179 72.9
0900 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3179 72.9
1000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3179 72.9
1100 0 0 8 82 0 0 90 3269 75.0
1200 0 0 1 163 0 0 164 3433 78.7
1300 0 0 0 52 75 0 127 3560 81.7
1400 0 0 0 4 122 0 126 3686 84.5
1500 0 0 0 16 95 0 111 3797 87.1
1600 0 0 0 61 31 9 101 3898 89.4
1700 0 0 0 106 0 3 109 4007 91.9
1800 0 0 0 74 6 4 84 4091 93.8
1900 0 0 0 29 3 8 40 4131 94.7
2000 0 0 31 5 5 0 41 4172 95.7
2100 0 0 52 10 0 0 62 4234 97.1
2200 0 0 62 6 4 0 72 4306 98.8
2300 0 33 11 6 4 0 54 4360 100.0
------------------------------------------------------
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