ARRL 10-Meter Contest
Call: K5TR
Operator(s): WM5R
Station: K5TR
Class: SO SSB HP
QTH: TX
Operating Time (hrs): 36
Summary:
Mode QSOs Mults
----------------------
CW:
SSB: 3004 136
----------------------
Total: 3004 136 = 817,088
Club: CTDXCC
Comments:
Station K5TR:
http://www.kkn.net/~k5tr/blanco/k5tr_station.html
Kenwood TS-850SAT
Kenwood TS-850SAT (receiver only)
Ameritron AL-1500
6-element yagi @ 30' fixed NE
4-element yagi @ 60' rotatable
12 meter dipole @ 40' fixed N-S
Ameritron RCS-8V antenna switch
AKG headset with Heil boom
W9XT contest card
TR Log 6.60
This was my second serious single-operator contest effort, and my
first ever QSOs in the ARRL 10 Meter Contest. Before now, I've mostly
been doing multi-ops and the occasional single-band effort. I have a lot
to learn.
George had the station set up and ready to go when I arrived. All
we had to do was plug in the cables and turn stuff on about a half hour
before the start. He rigged up to the two radios so that the "second"
radio would key (switch from receive to transmit) when the "first" radio
transmitted, but wouldn't send out a signal. This enabled me to use it
as a second receiver, even on my own transmit frequency, without worrying
about blowing out the front end. In fact, I ended up using it almost
exclusively on my own frequency with the audio mixing box putting the run
radio in the right ear and the receive-only radio in the left. The receive-
only radio was connected to a (really ugly) WARC band dipole with drooping
ends that George had erected out of PVC and wire for some Pactor thing
he's doing. There were many, many times when that antenna picked up signals
that the transmit antennas were not hearing at all. This especially happened
on weak South Americans, as my two transmit antennas were usually pointed
NE and NW. It was interesting to hear the fading differences in each ear
on signals. I think because the receive-only antenna was at a different
height and had some vertical sense to it, that may have also helped. But,
of course, most of the time the yagis heard better, and I often listened
exclusively on them when running Europe or Japan.
I'd only ever had a half dozen or so 100-hours in contests before this
weekend, mostly in the Sweepstakes. This rate thing is still very new to
me. I know I don't have the timing down right yet.
On Saturday morning, I think during the 1600 or 1700 hour, I was
running stations on 28.337.5 or thereabouts, and discovered that 28.337.0
is the "Ohio Ragchewer's Net" frequency. All these 8's started calling
one another on top of me, I told them the frequency was in use, and then
they got upset that I was there. ("He thinks that just because it's a
contest, he owns the frequency," and a little later, "We've met here every
day for twenty years!" I doubt they considered the irony.) They stuck
around for half an hour, harassing me and eventually telling me that they
would go to 12 meters as soon as I would pause to take a breath and let
them pick a frequency to move to. Finally, I called their bluff and
paused for like fifteen or twenty seconds, during which there was this
profound silence. I then continued to call CQ and they left after another ten
minutes of harassment.
Outside of this incident, I was hassled at least a little bit almost
every daylight hour during the contest weekend. Mostly carriers, whistles,
random barking noises, and the like, but one dim bulb came on frequency
near the start and kept shouting "No test! No test!" and "It's against
the law!" None of it was really terrible. One of the worst problems I had
was way up the band on Sunday, near 28.880 working Europe when someone came up
on the band and began to ragchew, and their crappy signal tore up several
hundreds of kHz of the spectrum. I never did find them, so after a while,
I found a better frequency down low (where I had to deal with Indonesian taxi
cab drivers and Spanish speaking CBers on AM, but they were a very low grade
annoyance) and my rate picked up again.
The only S&P I did was in the mornings before I started calling CQ
to Europe. Both mornings, the first non-CTDXCC signal I heard was in
Brazil. Two things surprised me. Stations in the 1200 hour had to be about
S3 on the TS-850's meter before they could begin to hear me. I don't
know if this is a propagation thing, being on the pre-dawn side of the
greyline, if the station and/or I hear unusually well on quiet bands, or
if the other stations were all deaf or what. It was very frustrating,
because I could hear them all very well. The other thing that surprised
me was how soon after hearing Brazil, Puerto Rico, etc. that I began hearing
Europe. Europe came through just five or ten minutes after the stations
in South America and the Caribbean.
I did not experience any Eskip or other openings after the band closed
on Saturday or Sunday night. Sunday night, in particular, the band closed
early and hard. The only stations I worked were locals. On Saturday, I
worked one W4 on what I think was a meteor ping.
I briefly had the "Last 60" total in TR over 200, but it didn't
work out to an even hour of over 200.
I did not work a single station signing /N or /T. I did work one /AE.
HOUR 10SSB TOTAL ACCUM
---- ------ ----- -----
0 128 128 128
1 85 85 213
2 64 64 277
3 12 12 289
4 2 2 291
5 2 2 293
6 0 0 293
7 0 0 293
8 0 0 293
9 0 0 293
10 0 0 293
11 0 0 293
12 10 10 303
13 103 103 406
14 144 144 550
15 162 162 712
16 191 191 903
17 187 187 1090
18 179 179 1269
19 151 151 1420
20 110 110 1530
21 134 134 1664
22 107 107 1771
23 109 109 1880
0 76 76 1956
1 39 39 1995
2 0 0 1995
3 3 3 1998
4 0 0 1998
5 3 3 2001
6 0 0 2001
7 0 0 2001
8 0 0 2001
9 0 0 2001
10 0 0 2001
11 0 0 2001
12 10 10 2011
13 57 57 2068
14 112 112 2180
15 102 102 2282
16 88 88 2370
17 81 81 2451
18 116 116 2567
19 108 108 2675
20 93 93 2768
21 101 101 2869
22 72 72 2941
23 63 63 3004
TOTAL 3004
Continent List
160 80 40 20 15 10 30 17 12 ALL
--- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---
USA calls = 0 0 0 0 0 1837 0 0 0 1837
VE calls = 0 0 0 0 0 138 0 0 0 138
N.A. calls = 0 0 0 0 0 23 0 0 0 23
S.A. calls = 0 0 0 0 0 53 0 0 0 53
Euro calls = 0 0 0 0 0 676 0 0 0 676
Afrc calls = 0 0 0 0 0 10 0 0 0 10
Asia calls = 0 0 0 0 0 16 0 0 0 16
JA calls = 0 0 0 0 0 209 0 0 0 209
Ocen calls = 0 0 0 0 0 42 0 0 0 42
Total calls = 0 0 0 0 0 3004 0 0 0 3004
Multiplier Distribution
=======================
1. Ca 233
2. JA 209
3. Ny 149
4. DL 112
5. Va 106
6. Oh 95
7. Pa 94
8. Wa 85
9. Nj 81
10. Ma 80
11. I 78
12. Mi 77
13. Il 73
14. Md 73
15. G 68
16. Tx 63
17. Mn 55
18. Wi 53
19. F 52
20. On 50
.....
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