ARRL 10-Meter Contest
Call: K4SAV
Operator(s): K4SAV
Station: K4SAV
Class: SO CW HP
QTH: AL
Summary:
Qs Pts Mult
868 3476 79
Score 274,604
(ARRL sections: 54 of 63. Missed Me, Ut, and 7 VE sections. Those guys
were probably hibernating.)
-----------------------------------------------------
Very interesting conditions during the contest. Started off Friday with
a two hour effort working only Al, Ga, Tn, Mn, In, and VP5. It was like
pulling teeth. No propagation. Where do you point the beam to work these
stations? I found that any direction except pointed at the station was
best. Signal strength was minimum when pointed at the station,
strange. After 2 hours and only working 18 stations, I quit for the night.
Got up at about 1400Z Saturday, went in and turned on the radio - dead,
no stations. Listened for an hour until I noticed that the dummy load
was connected. Works better when connected to the antenna. I noticed
that when working central US and west coast, that signals were strongest
with the beam pointed north. Many disappeared when the beam was pointed
west. I ran bi-directional for a while, trying not to miss the South
Americans that were coming thru, and the occasional EA8, CU, ZS, ZL,
KH6, and the Caribbean stations. Things got very good around 1900Z to
the north and New England. Someone must have spotted me on packet or
something. For a two hour time slot I averaged 93/hr, with a couple of
20 minute average rates of 132/hr. It was nice.
Band was decent until around 0200Z, then the bottom fell out and the
only stations I could hear were Florida and they were booming in. After
I worked all of them, I took a break. I thought the band was done for
the night. Came back around 0300Z and the band was open to the north and
New England. Had a nice run of New England stations. There weren't very
many stations on the band. I guess, like me, everyone thought the band
was closing down and they went to bed. The band was still open with good
signals when I went to bed at 0600Z. There were just not any new
stations to work, but the signals from the north were strong. Got up at
0930Z and listened, and the band was dead, no stations at all. Went back
to bed.
Started around 1330Z on Sunday morning. Seems the best direction to
point the beam was south for all US stations, weird. Although the EA8
stations were strongest with the beam pointed at them.
Midday I pointed the beam toward Europe and was getting an EA and EA8
station every now and then. For the US stations, the best direction to
point the beam seemed to be toward Europe anyway, and that includes for
west coast stations. Around 1700Z the band finally opened to the
Scandinavian countries and European Russia. Got OH(10 of them), SM, LA,
TF, UA, YL
I worked 1 novice.
I just looked up some of the DX spots for the contest, and I see I was
spotted at least 11 times. Thanks to all you guys that spotted me.
Jerry
|