IOTA Contest
Call: WZ3AR
Operator(s): WZ3AR
Station: N3HBX
Class: SO24SSB HP
QTH: Maryland
Operating Time (hrs): 21
Summary:
Band CW Qs CW Mults Ph Qs Ph Mults
----------------------------------------
80: 12 6
40: 12 7
20: 763 86
15: 31 9
10: 0 0
----------------------------------------
Total: 0 0 818 108 Total Score = 600,696
Club:
Comments:
Decent score despite less-than-optimal propagation and poor operator skill.
At the beginning of the contest 15m was basically dead and I had a feeling that
20m would be open to Asia so I started there. The move paid off: YB, DU, and a
bunch of 15-point JAs. I worked more JAs in this short run than in the past
several years. After a little while Asia faded out and I was left working the
U.S. and Europe. Then around late morning or midday the band starting getting
weaker to Europe until there was no propagation to that region at all. For a
time, all I could work was 3-point U.S. stations, although there were a fair
number of them available. It must have been some type of disturbance but
thankfully the band did open back up later.
Two other interesting propagation notes: working a LA station on the gray line
at my sunset and a great 01z opening over the pole on 20m netting tens of UA9
stations, although none of them were IOTAs. JA was in the gray line at my
sunrise but I never heard any JA stations during this period, although I did get
a few later in the morning towards the end of the contest. 15m was basically a
bust with only weak Europe and U.S. openings and nothing from the Pacific. I
never heard anything on 10m. I asked N4PN (NA085) to move there but we never
heard each other. 20m had little from the Pacific and was marginal to Europe for
long periods. I worked 40 and 80m a lot harder than in years past but there just
wasn't anyone down there. I did, however, have a G call me simplex on 40m, which
was a first for me. I was hoping to get N5LYG and VC9W on 80m but never heard
them down there. Early in the morning I was hunting contacts on 40m and managed
to get a casual op in Colorado and another in VK to work me and a KH2 called in
as well, although that QSO was tough to make. In all, it was nice making a few
QSOs on the other bands during my monoband 20m effort :-)
Every year I work the IOTA contest (this was the third time) I get exactly 4 new
DXCC entities, 3 of which are IOTAs. The same was true this year with DU, KH2 (2
different stations on 2 different bands), CY0, and HZ being the new ones. All of
them except CY0 called me while I was CQing. I also got a lot more needed
prefixes and IOTAs. I got a few African mults (CT3, EA8, ZD8, IH9) but none from
South America other than P4.
I had problems identifying as "Whiskey Zulu 3 Alpha Radio" in the IARU contest
earlier this month so I decided to try "Whiskey Zanzibar 3 America Radio" as my
primary set of phonetics in this one. It seems to work well and although it's a
little longer than the other one I can usually say it easier and faster. I took
off from 1-4AM local time when the bands were really bad but other than that I
worked the contest pretty hard other than occassional breaks to walk around and
stretch. The many Gs and Ms really make this contest worthwhile; I have to work
5 mainland U.S. or Europe stations to equal one of them.
Band conditions didn't seem a lot better than last year but I made almost twice
as many QSOs and got 8 more mults, although I was considerably far down from my
effort 2 years ago. Maybe my perception is off or maybe I'm actually getting
better at sucking QSOs out of the bands.
Big thanks to N3HBX and XYL for letting me operate from the station. This was
the fourth time I've operated from John and Carol's place and I get better at
using the station every time.
Radio: Yaesu FT-1000MP MK V
Amp: Emtron DX-3 at 1500w
Antennas: go to http://www.pvrc.org/WCSD/WCSDsearch.htm and look up N3HBX
73!
Nat WZ3AR
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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