IARU HF World Championship
Call: WC1M
Operator(s): WC1M
Station: WC1M
Class: SO CW HP
QTH: NH
Operating Time (hrs): 23
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Mults
---------------------------
160: 10 7
80: 64 18
40: 531 58
20: 775 70
15: 117 31
10: 3 3
---------------------------
Total: 1500 0 187 Total Score = 996,897
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
Antennas:
160M - trapped vee @65'
80M - delta loop @75', trapped vee @65'
40M - 40-2CD @75', 4-square
20M - 4-el @72', C3E @50'
15M - 5-el @50', C3E @50'
10M - C3E @50'
580' NE beverage
All yagis on separate tubular towers (no vertical stacks)
Equipment:
FT-1000D + Alpha 87A, FT-1000MP + Acom 2000A, Writelog, TopTen band decoders
and switches.
Congrats to Jack W1WEF for a super single-op score, and to anyone who stuck it
out through very tough conditions this year.
Jack beat me badly on 80m and 15m. I think 80m was a combination of his phased
array(s?) outclassing my delta loop, plus some poor strategy on my part. I had
good rate going on 40m Saturday night and didn't think I could pull in enough
Europeans on 80m to make CQing there worthwhile. I heard Jack CQing there
several times without much rate, but that was probably an illusion (or delusion,
as the case may be.) As it turned out, he did 180 more Qs on 80m than I did,
while I did 138 more than he did on 40m. We were close on mults for 40m, but
Jack came up with 21 extra mults on 80m. I S&Ped on 80m with the second radio,
but that wasn't enough to find all the mults. AA3B also outdid me on 80m, so I
messed up. Hopefully, I'll re-read this post next year and not make the same
mistake. The difference on 15m was probably pure propagation -- the band was
hardly open here all weekend, and I checked it often. 10m was slightly more open
for Jack, too. People don't believe me when I say the propagation on the high
bands can be very different a couple hundred miles north, but it's true --
especially when conditions are disturbed.
The K index was 5 at the start of the contest, which probably reduced
participation this year. After only 30 Qs in the 1400z hour, I seriously
considered giving up. I imagine a lot of smarter people decided to do that,
preferring to enjoy the nice summer weather (at least here in the northern
hemisphere) rather than sitting inside digging deep in the noise for QSOs. But
conditions were predicted to improve, so I gutted it out. Sure enough, the K
index dropped from about 5 at the beginning to as low as 2 on Sunday, and some
good rate developed.
15m never produced a decent run, but was good for lots of 2nd radio contacts and
a few mults. It was basically a 20m contest for the first 11 hours, then a 40m
contest for the next 11 hours, then 20m for the last two hours. JA finally
opened Sunday morning and produced a decent but short run. Plenty of Asians
showed up, plus VK/ZL. The latter showed up Sunday morning on 40m, too, but the
morning 40m JA opening is much too weak this time of year to have gotten that
mult. Picked up some mults on 160m and 80m, but as I said before, I didn't spend
enough time on 80m.
Thanks to the folks at K1RX and KT1V for making NU1AW available. Got you on five
bands, but I guess we were too close for me to hear you on 10m. Got W1AW/3 on
six bands, though, and they did a great job handing out the ARRL HQ mult as
well.
Speaking of W1AW/3, 20 minutes into the contest I worked a station signing
W1AW/3 who gave me zone 8 for the exchange. I asked, "not ARRL?" and he said
"no, 8". A minute later I worked W1AW/3 slightly up the band who was sending
"ARRL". Apparently, someone notified one of the W1AW/3 phone ops and he
staightened out the CW op!
Had some suspicious contacts from people I suspected were jammers. You know, the
slow oblivious sender with heavy swing on his fist. He calls, doesn't give the
exchange, then starts a QSO. He won't give up, despite much pleading sent by
slow CW or just ignoring him by going back to high-speed running. I think the
same guy insisted on calling CQ under me for about ten minutes before going away
in WPX. Is this just a bad op, or someone acting in bad faith? Speaking of bad
faith, is there any excuse for tuning over a station you can copy? I had several
of those -- they were 20 over here, so I know they can hear me. Lids or
jammers?
Antenna changes from last year include raising the 40-2CD from 50' to 75' and
replacing the 10m monobander with C3E tribander. I'm sure the higher antenna
helped on 40m, and having the tribander back in the system really helps
flexibility. I might not have spotted the JA opening on 20m Sunday morning had I
not been "stacking" the monobander and tribander with one pointed at EU and the
other at JA.
I really like the format of this contest -- the unusual start time, variety of
QSO points, ITU zones, HQ stations, etc., but it sure is tough to make it
through the last two hours!
Once again, I didn't hear many of the perennial W1 big guns. More room at the
top for us little guys!
73, Dick WC1M
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
|