NA Sprint CW Contest
Call: W6JPL
Operator(s): W4EF
Station: W6VIO
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 4
Summary:
Band QSOs Op Time
---------------------
80: 57 00:49
40: 145 01:56
20: 100 01:15
---------------------
Total: 302 Mults = 51 Total Score = 15,402
Club: Southern California Contest Club
Team: SCCC #1
Comments:
Rig: Yaesu FT-1000/Ameritron AL-82
Antenna: 20M TH7DX @60'
40M 402CD @70'
80M Delta Loop with the Apex at 60' (K9AY Loops for RX)
I started out great. For about 15 minutes I was keeping pace with all the A-list
operators and was on pace for a 100 hour. However, as George C. Scott said in
the closing moments of the movie Patton, "All Glory is Fleeting", and in my case
it was very fleeting, indeed. The rest of the contest was the usual struggle to
keep those two and three minute gaps in the log to a minimum.
Twenty petered out early, so I hit forty and seemed to do fine there (the 2
element 40 at W6VIO works great). By 0310z forty was starting to wane for me, so
I hit 80 meters expecting full well to get a surge in rate from all the loud W6
and 7's that I would find there. Things didn't go as planned, however, as I soon
discovered that there was something wrong with the K9AY receiving loops. After
about 5 minutes of making do with the TX antenna while wiggling cables at every
available pause, I looked up at the patch panel and realized the loops weren't
connected - Dooh!! Then everything made sense. After that I struggled to get
into a rhythm, but it seemed like I was getting beat out at every turn to all
the easy local stuff. The straw that broke the camel's back was when Dick N6AA
dropped in a perfectly timed call and snatched a QSO right out from under me
(good job Dick). Thirty minutes earlier I was gloating about how I had done
exactly the same thing to some other poor sap. Now that I was on the receiving
end of the deal, I wasn't so happy. This little defeat, together with the
collective frustration of the last two hours precipitated a string of expletives
from my mouth that would have made a sailor blush. After giving the radio the
one digit salute, it dawned upon me that if I didn't pull it together I was
going to come up short of 300 QSOs again. At that point, some powerful force
from deep within my psyche took over, my adrenaline surged and I became a
rockin? and rollin? QSO machine during the last 20 minutes of the contest. I
finished up with K8MM just as the clock rolled over to 04:00Z with 304 raw QSOs
in the log (302 after dupes). Whew, I made it to 300 Qs and with 51 mults to
boot (I heard, but never worked W4OC in SC)!
Even though it frustrates the hell out of me every time I do it, I still love
this contest. Cu all next time!!
73 de Mike, W4EF................
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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