THE IARU '96 P40Z ( Zeeee - as in snooze) STORY
Dennis Motschenbacher - AA7VB
I want to take this opportunity to thank all the gang that expeditiosly
checked in and blew a contact by me in the IARU test. Because of you, I had
a great time and once again found that being on the other end of the pile is
the real reason I get up every morning and go to work. Being one of those
contesters that never seems to quite get it right and who will never achieve
national status doesn't keep me from still getting in there and embarassing
myself every chance I get (actually, I have been successful at that aspect of
the game...)
This was my second trip to operate from the Carl Cook AI6V / P49V super QTH.
Last year I wasted the station by using it to introduce me to CT two days
before the contest. That remarkable piece of stupidity guaranteed my seventh
7th place finish. My goal this year was to simply get on the air, not blow
up Carl's FT1000, improve my position by a place or two up the ladder and
most of all try and regain some of my honor after that embarrassing finish
last year. Well, I can say only this -- I didn't blow up the FT 1000. The
score break down for this year is as follows:
P40Z CW only
BAND QSOS ZONES HQ
160 1 1 0
80 60 12 7
40 681 25 11
20 752 27 12
15 334 18 10
10 74 9 3
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TOTALS 1,902 92 43
AVG QSO Pts - 4.87
TOTAL - 9,263 pts. X 135 = 1,250,505
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------
160
There is a great sloper off one of the towers but at this time of the year it
hears very little more than noise. Tried some EU and USA sunset/sunrise to
no avail. Did manage to make a really neat loud noise come out of the Alpha
78 that woke up Carl's neighbors on the North side of the house....
80
Managed to squeak one of each of the typical easy catches out of this ear
blasting band. My apologizes to all the EU gang who called my alligator but
only pulled a
" ? " out of me. Carl talked me out of stringing the beverages out for this
trip but next year I'm putting 'em up wild donkeys or no donkeys. Actually,
I did run a few hundred feet of wire on top of the tall cactus but didn't do
all the finishing touches with balun etc. and, of course, got what I
deserved--a few hundred feet of pretty blue wire on some tall cactus and not
a RX ant.
40
I go to Carl's for one main reason - 40m rate!!! His 2el up around 70 ft
plays and plays and plays. The runs are what we all live for and he has a
big enough signal to let ya keep the gang under countrol. My rate meter
spent some time above the 300 mark here and I loved every minute of it. I
hope you guys did too. By Saturday nite you were all in the groove and so
was I. We had a ball on this band seeing who could copy 45 wpm and who
couldn't. Tfhe WRTC gang had a blast trying to blow each other away in the
piles. Sending a K6 ? or W6? brought some of the neatest fast moving
rate I have ever had the pleasure of enjoying even surpassing those 300+
hours from a previous /KP5 trip. EU was in for hours and the JA runs were ok
tho not like years gone by. The 2el JA folks certainly to do stand out and
there are a bunch of them nowadays.
20
Opened on 20 primarily because that is the only band I could copy anyone on
through the rain static. Yeah--desert isle Aruba decided to gift me with its
first rain storm in weeks at 1145Z. It probably washed the dirt and salt
coating off the power lines so I say me and Mother Nature are even on this
issue though it made for a pretty frustrating first 2 hours in the contest.
20 was down measurably from last year zone-wise. Just didn't seem to bring
the far out zones like last year. Of course, I don't know how to play this
band like my good friend who I admire so much for his mult chasing - K5GN.
Had some super high rate here, too. Could tell you guys were having fun in
these piles. Some of you older guys like me even remembered to see if I can
still take a tail end. The WRTC gang was good at this and I am sure my heros
like K4BAI were at the end of those tailends.
15 & 10
Both bands way off from last year. The deep mults weren't here and each EU
mult was met with a bell ringing- throw stuff at the wall-jumping up and down
like a baboon-display of immaturity by me. Spent way too much time trying to
find mults that weren't there and most certainly lost a shot at the Big
Banana spot with this bad decision. The WRTC gang were all over 10m like
cockroaches once it opened for an hour or two. My thanks to the few EU
stations that had 10meter 30el beams at a gazzion feet who burned a hole in
the ionsphere so I could get a mult here. Had odd EU one station at a time
openings from 1530 all the way through 2330...weird.
WRTC Comments
With very few exceptions, my impressions was that they were all running low
power to kinda crummy ants. Very few times did a station seem to rise above
the pack and I wrote those few off to conditions. Not sure what the read was
over in EU but I would say the organizers did a very admirable job of keeping
everyone on a pretty even playing field contrary to some of the comments I
have read on the reflector. It is possible that the station and terrain
differences were more evident in the States than they were to those of us out
a few thousands more miles. I think I missed K6L and O for a sweep even
with all that time I spent tracking these guys around. Oh Carl. I'm sorry
about the bandswitch on the Alpha but you can't believe how arrogant these
clowns were about asking for band changes all over the place. My
congratulations to the W6 who moved me from 10 through 20 then still had
sufficient ego left to move me to 40 meters in the middle of the day with his
pipsqueak signal. The really funny thing is I went down there and tried to
find him!!! It was so exciting being part of the WRTC thing in my own way
from down there and I will never forget the excitement you all projected
across all those miles. I had the rare previlage of hearing your skills from
a different prospective than most and you were all the Best of the Best in
my book--and log... My fondest dream would be that some of you heard me and
had a passing thought that it was nice to hear me not operating with my left
foot this year....
My Apologies to Carl for:
1. That upset lady next door to the South who maybe thought I was peeking in
her
window about 2 am when I went outside to see what the heck all the racket was
about.
2. That upset neighbor to the East who came outside that same 2am to see why
I was laughing like some insanely drunk sailor as I watched the neighborhood
dogs try and take on that wild donkey as he wandered through making the most
Godawful sound I have ever heard except;
3. Those damn wild chickens that propped themselves just outside the shack
window to scare the living daylights out of me about 4am for my moring
wake-up.
4. That loud noise mentioned earlier. I made another 800 Q's after it so
actually I think it helped and I would spend anymore money sending that thing
back to Alpha-just get me a shot at it on 160 to clean it's tubes out...so to
speak.
Actually Carl,
I never left the house the whole five days I was there (except to check out
that gal next door) and really enjoyed my stay. I hope others will contact
you and take advantage of your wonderful Aruba multitower QTH. But don't
book next year's IARU...I already have dibs on it.
73 to all Dennis AA7VB KZ5M VP2EWW VP2EV V40Z V47W P40Z KC6DM VP2LS
and a whole bunch of /C6A/YV/TI/VP9 etc stuff.
]
>From dleclair@efn.org (Cleve D Leclair) Fri Jul 19 04:07:40 1996
From: dleclair@efn.org (Cleve D Leclair) (Cleve D Leclair)
Subject: Bencher Paddles
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.960718200005.29054A-100000@garcia.efn.org>
Hi Paddle users....I have used the BB BTL-A, and its look alike from
Hamkey, vibrokeyer/non-iambic, brass racer, bencher/black base...
I'd have to say the BB is too light fer my FIST...The hamkey was heavier,
but the silver contacts weren't reliable,. The vibrokeyer was...
well...non-iambic. I didn't use the brass racer long enough to say. And I
now, have the 35.00 bencher...Actually the hamkey new was 29.95...The BB
was most expensive, bought from a collector who wanted to sell but only
at his price....And I WANTED one....never mind the price...
Cleve - N7IXG
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