ARRL DX Contest - CW
Call: K3ZO
Operator(s):
Station:
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: MD
Operating Time (hrs): 43
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
----------------------
160: 32 24
80: 196 52
40: 655 78
20: 990 84
15: 934 87
10: 1053 83
----------------------
Total: 3860 408 = 4,723,416
Comments:
Well if this had been last year I would have won the contest, but I'm sure
everyone else did better too. Nevertheless, everything seemed to go well for
me. It turns out to have been very useful for me to drop S&P in favor of
running in the CQWW, even though in those contests my multipliers suffered and
the scores weren't as good as I had hoped. But I got some idea of how far you
can go in S&P before time begins to be wasted. So I put some S&P back in my
planning for this contest but I contolled it strictly.
Dumb luck played its part. Thanks to the rain Friday night and Saturday
morning the line noise was missing Saturday on 15 and 10, and I was able to
have a good JA run on 15 Friday night and get off to a great start on building
my 10 meter total Saturday morning. I had planned to start the contest on 40
but since 40 is never bothered by line noise I decided at the last minute to
begin on 10 and 15 to take advantage of the quiet conditions on those bands.
The line noise was back on Sunday, but not as severe as it was last year at
this time. Mike Martin of PEPCO has definitely made a difference.
Then, after I finally did get to 40 the first night, just as I was preparing to
go to 80 my 80 meter beam was hit by severe precipitation static from a passing
rain squall, and so I went to 20 in order to be able to use my quad which never
gets hit by precip static. What I found there was a beautiful midnight opening
to Europe and Asia all at once, and by pointing the quad at about 20 degrees I
could work both, and for several hours the callers came as fast as I could
handle them. Had I stayed on 80 and 40 I would have missed it.
I also managed to get by with only about four hours' sleep. Conditions were
just too good to take any more time off. But with one cup of coffee Saturday
morning and two cups Sunday morning I felt reasonably good the whole time. I
save coffee for the contests, preferring never to drink it otherwise precisely
so that when I do use it it will have the desired effect.
73, Fred
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
K3ZO 3860 408 4,723,416SOAB HP
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