Hello all:
Well, given the quality of the guys on my team, my goal was to not be
the lowest score on the team. It seems likely that I failed in that
regard.
Had problem with bad spot on rotator and rotated tribander generally
between south, through west to NW and back again. No doubt that hurt
some on the top three bands.
We had a complete HF blackout at 1906Z, so I took off a half hour. I
had been unable to get the 160 meter antenna setup to work before the
contest, so I got it working half way during this break. The MFJ
antenna tuner showed no reflected power, but the ATU in the rig wouldn't
tune it (for the first time ever). So, without the antenna tuner, I was
running about 40 watts on 160, but it did allow for 17 QSOs in 10
sections.
The low dipole on 40 worked well. Strangely the close in signals were
extremely weak and hard to work (including K4IQJ about 35 miles away)
until fairly late in the eventing. Then we had a short period of strong
close in signals, and then had long skip.
The QRN was not very bad here, but was noticeable. The highest rates
running were definitely on 80. That is a first for me particularly for
August.
Missed W4AN on 160 for some reason, but K2UFT came to my rescue. Heard
AK4XX there, but couldn'g get him as he wasn't CQing and didn't answer
my CQs.
Took a half hour off for dinner with the XYL at 2310 UTC and then took
off the last hour when I figured much of the activity was dropping off
from the East Coast.
Didn't do as much QSYing for mults as in the past since didn't feel too
confident without the complete abiltiy to rotate the beam. Also, wasn't
asked to QSY much (since GA was definitely not rare). Good job guys.
Here is the result:
160 17 10
80 137 41
40 205 50
20 195 47
15 74 31
10 17 13
ALL 645 192 = 123,840.
10 meters was open really good to various areas for an hour before the
contest. It was still open when the contest started, but there was
little activity. 10 meters never really opened again after the
blackout, but a few local QSYs did work and I think I got NP4Z and maybe
a few others there afterward.
Hope everyone had fun. 73, John, K4BAI.
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