ARRL 10-Meter Contest
Call: NX5M
Operator(s): NX5M, N5XJ, N5DUW, KU5B, NT5TU, KA5BKG, AB5K
Station: NX5M
Class: M/S HP
QTH: TX
Operating Time (hrs): 32
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
CW: 838 91
SSB: 1042 89
-------------------
Total: 1880 180 Total Score = 981,360
Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club
Comments:
Oh boy, where to start.
Well first off, late afternoon Friday I got sick with a stomach virus....chills,
fever and within two hours of the contest I was in the boys room radiating in
both directions (if you know what I mean). This kept me out of the shack the
first night (except to go in an sparay the room down with disinfectant just in
case what I had was catching). I spent my evening covered in quilts. KA5BKG
arrived a few minutes before the start of the contest so I met him at the side
door. I told him my problem and just told him to operate the best he could (he
is not a cw op). About 0030z NT5TU arrived so at least I now had a cw guy.
They traded off operating time until a little after 0400. NT5TU came in the
house to tell me that he had a DL call in on cw long path. About an hour or so
later NT5TU came in told me that KA5BKG had gone home and it was not long after
that when he left too. But he was kind enough to drive into town and get me a
couple of bottles of Gatorade to keep me from dehydrating. The station was left
unattended at that point which is something that I do not like to do since we
never know when the band will open up again. I always say that we should never
miss an opening and the only way to know if there is one is to be there in the
chair. Typically the first night we operate until midnight and quit. Not this
time. So Friday night was a less than optimum effort.
Saturday morning I finally woke up about 1345z with a major headache. I looked
out the window to see that no operators were here. I started thinking that it
might be best if we just blow this thing off. Lost operating time the first
night and now no one operating on Saturday morning. Luckily, within a matter of
10 minutes, N5DUW arrived after a 2-hour drive to get here. Shortly after, N5XJ
rolled into the driveway and we were underway. I was not much into trying to
operate yet with such a headache so I let them handle the duties. I saw the
rate meter go over 300 several times during the day on Saturday. I think the
peak I saw was 356. In looking at the rate sheet there were 3 straight hours of
160+/hr. Around 1230pm CST KU5B arrived to operate for the first time here in a
10m contest. He would only be able to stay until mid-morning Sunday so I wanted
to give him plenty of operating time. We now had a good lineup of ops to cover
the rest of the day.
As Saturday went on and we got into the latter part of the night (10pm local)
N5XJ and I took over. We were hoping the band would stay open a little later as
well as hoping that we'd still be able to grab some more q's after 0600....well,
it did stay open and we kept the station on the air until about 0730z. At least
we made up some of the lost time from the station sitting idle late Friday
night. Just a shame more people did not stay on the air late Saturday....band
was open.....very few to work. We were even able to grab 2 or 3 more mults
after 0600z. What in the world would make someone in Vermont and Ontario wake
up at 2am EST and get on 10m? Since we had been up until almost 2am I left a
note for N5DUW and KU5B to let them know what we had done and what time they
could get back on the air. N5XJ and I needed to sleep in a bit Sunday morning.
N5XJ beat me to the shack Sunday morning because he is normally an early riser
anyway. Me, I stumbled in about 830am CST. I asked Jack, N5DUW what time he
got up. He said he was awakend by a noise about 430am. The noise was KU5B who
had falled out of the top rack of a bunk bed (no injuries). Jack just waited
around until about 1145z to get back on the air....per my instructions.
Then there was the Sunday grind. Openings were there but it did not seem as
good as Saturday. AB5K drove over Sunday morning with a laptop to plug into the
network to show some interesting data that he can extract from cluster spots.
It was pretty neat to watch and see graphically on a world map where the band is
open to. He never operated due to going out and working on a project that he and
I have been working on for the past few weeks.
I thought that we might get that opening to Scandanavia again this year but did
not really count on it. As many of you know it did happen again just like last
year.....same day....same times. Saw TF spotted but we either could not hear
him or we were just late getting to the spot frequency. I just believe we could
not hear him which was hard for me to accept. Maybe it was just a matter of
timing.
I have read that several people were having line noise problems. We were not
immune to this either. I think we lost a few q's because of it. This location
used to be as quite as could be. But recently something has happened somewhere
and I have been on the power company for weeks now.
We never worked ID, ND, AK on SSB and missed AK on CW. I guess there was no
propagation to VE4 this year....missed that on both modes and LB on cw. Never
worked NWT, YT, NU, PEI.
Nice to have some EU and AF call in this year. Mostly western EU but that is
better than nothing.
10 is not dead! It just takes more patience.....
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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