CQWW WPX Contest, SSB
Call: KT5J
Operator(s): K5TR
Station: K5TR
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: TEXAS
Operating Time (hrs): ~36
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160: 6
80: 47
40: 848
20: 1098
15: 1338
10: 54
------------
Total: 3391 Prefixes = 1081 Total Score = 8,093,447
Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club
Comments:
Have you ever had one of those contests where everything just works
great? Propagation is good for you, signals are strong, your long
suffering line noise has vanished, your every move seems to be blessed
with good fortune in short you feel at one with bands. I have too.
But that was some other weekend, during some other contest. Sure
there were moments this weekend when things looked bright, propagation
was sounding very fine, the station was all setup and ready to go and
the operator was rested. Moments like this are often fleeting.
My contest started on 15 meters. Shortly after the contest started I
found a frequency and was settling in to some good rate with a
mixture of USA and Japanese stations. Rate was great and the future
was looking bright. By 00:32z I had 100 contacts in the log. At
00:35z the AL-1500 that I was using blew up in a most impressive
display for POPS, cracks, sizzle and smoke.
It reminded me of the amp exploding in NCCC SS tape #3. If you have
never heard it check it out.
http://www.kkn.net/~k5tr/audio/nccc/nccc-ss-tape-3.mp3
The amp explodes about 9 minutes into tape #3.
The plume of smoke blasting out of the top tube vent was not unlike
the smoke seen when a NASCAR engine blows at Daytona. I quickly
slapped the power switch off and tried to keep calling CQ at 100 watts
but with not many answers while I collected myself and decided what I
should do next. I moved the station that was on 20 meters to my 15
meter frequency and considered many things as my run got going again.
Should I quit, change to low power, change to single band 15 and
several other things. As I thought about these things I kept running
and figured I would either do 15 or just pretty much a single radio
thing. I do not really have a spare amp - I have an amp that has a
fried band switch that I knew worked on a few bands but I was not sure
which bands. I was kicking myself for not having found the time nor
the courage to dig into that Alpha 78 and fix the bad wafer. But I am
sure those of you that have seen the insides of a 78 will identify
with the terror it can inspire. And for those of you have not seen
this horror, cast your eyes on this:
http://alturl.com/4xhaw
or
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_6uckF-cvQ70/SatRBcnkSGE/AAAAAAAALCU/RZwfqysSSps/Alpha78CleaningAndPreening.jpg
I finally did swap in the Alpha 78 later in the evening and found that
it worked on 40 and 10. It was great to have a 40 meter amp as it
allowed me to use the other station on the other bands at night.
Anyway, back to the contest at hand. I regained my composure and was
running again, well for about 10 minutes and I un-keyed and there was a
BY station less than .5 kHz from my frequency calling CQ. He was
clearly not hearing me even though he was S7 or so here. My JA run
stopped cold and he was making it hard for me to work much of anything
else. I finally gave up and went off to find a new frequency. The
band was packed! Wow. But I finally found a new frequency and was off
and running again way high in the band. Life was OK again. This
frequency was not nearly as good and I was not working as many DX
stations as before but like I said, it was OK. After being there for
about 20 minutes I un-keyed to find, you guessed it, an S7 BY station
calling CQ zero beat with me. He is not hearing me. In fact he is
not hearing anyone as far as I can tell. He is not working anyone.
But he is calling CQ and my JA run disappears again. After about 9
minutes I finally accept that this will not work and I go looking for
a frequency and finally just give up and go to 20 meters.
At this point my love for this contest is waning a bit. But things
are mostly working except that I having having a very hard time
working anyone on 40 meters with 100 watts. In between running guys
on 20 meters I manage to swap out the AL-1500 with the mostly broken
Alpha 78 in hopes that my memory is good and it does indeed work on
some bands that are useful. The only one I can remember for sure is
10 meters. I get it in line and warmed up and yes, indeed it does
work on 40 meters. Things are looking up even if I am still feeling
somewhat defeated by the loss of the other amplifier.
I move to 40 meters and the night is good, I find a good frequency and
make it through the night with some cool things and even a night time
short path opening to EU on 20 meters. Signals are good but I do not
really have any luck calling CQ during that time but it is cool
anyway. Sunrise comes and I get a great frequency on 15 meters and
stay all day. The rates are great. Things are fun. QRM at times is
very painful but I hang on to this frequency because I am sure that
there are no others and surely no others anywhere near my current
frequency of 21203.7.
The only issue I was having at this point (other than the amp and not
much 2nd radio action) was that I was really really tired and was
spacing out (OK, OK) I was falling asleep in the middle of
contacts. So I had decided I would take some offtime and get a nap in
- and come back to run some JAs, get some over the pole stuff on 20
and be rested for the long night on 40 meters. So go to bed. I get
back on in about 1.5 hours and am getting things going when I notice
that I have some noise. Rain static. Static crashes. A thunderstorm!
I take an offtime and look at the radar. I can't believe it, the
thunderstorm is small but is is purple at it's center and it is pretty
much right over me or at least very very close. I get back in bed for
an hour so as not to waste my offtime. I get back up and back on the
radio and things are going again and then I am hearing louder and
louder and louder than the last time static crashes. Sure enough the
sister to the last storm is headed my way and has way more lightening.
How can this be? It is raining almost no where else in Texas but I
have these tiny little thunderstorms on top of me. So I am off again
- to make matters worse they are moving so very slow on the radar. I
am off again and back to sort of sleeping but only in less than
optimum hour or less chunks. When I get up the next time things are
looking clear and it proves to be the last thunderstorm of the weekend
but sadly I have missed all of the JAs on 15 meters and all of the
over the pole stuff on 20 meters and well anything else on 20 meters.
But I am able to settle in on 40 and work stations pretty well and I
keep adding to my QSO and mult totals but not working enough DX. I
still need to work on my 40 meter yagi - yeah, I know I say this every
year. But maybe one year I will get it done - time to build the
fullsized 40 meter yagi.
Sunday is pretty good - but I do not get any really great frequencies
on 15 meters and I have to move several times. I even call some CQs
on 10 meters and get answers from Europe - but no real rate - but it
was fun. I am so looking forward to that band opening up. Nothing
like building your station on the down side of the solar cycle and
only getting a year or so of 10 meters and most before you have real
antennas up - to make you wonder about when you will get to use those
antennas for something other than E-skip.
I finished the contest on 20 meters trying to pull up the my low QSO
total on that band along with hoping to get some mults - having missed
some prime time 20 meters the night before. It all works out except
for wasting time calling CQ with no answers and burning an offtime as
a result of some odd glitch in the radio or the operator that caused me
to be calling CQ with the TX and RX frequencies not in the same place.
I think this happened at least one other time on Sunday. I will need
to play with the radio and see if it is was me or it or some odd
combination of things that was causing it - but then again maybe I was
just tired.
Ok - so I did have fun - and I am not ready to sell my radios and
quit this crazy game. I know that I left a lot on the table (on the
bands?) this weekend but I am already looking forward to the next one
- well I will be in a few days or weeks, maybe not so much right now.
Thanks for all the contacts.
Thanks to K5OT for letting me abuse his radios yet again.
(I bet he is glad the amp is not his)
And also for letting me abuse his KT5J call sign too.
Thanks to K5TSQ for not bugging me to bring his broken Alpha 78 back
to him. I really will get it fixed. I think I even have the correct
part for it. But did you see the insides? Does it not scare you?
No, really, go look:
http://alturl.com/4xhaw
I need to replace a band switch wafer.
Ok - see you all in the next contest - and for me that is the June VHF
contest.
And if you have never listened to the NCCC SS tapes - then stop what
you are doing and listen to them, now.
http://www.kkn.net/~k5tr/nccc-tapes.html
Station:
http://www.k5tr.net/
2x Elecraft K3 radios (tnx k5ot)
2x AL-1500 amps (for 30 mins then alpha 78 on 40 and 10 only)
160 - 1/4 wave sloping verticals sloped east and west
- NE, NW, SE, SW beverages ~500' long
80 - Half wave sloping dipoles - sloped NE, NW from 120'.
- NE, NW, SE, SW beverages ~500' long
40 - Force 12 240N at 120'
- Cushcraft 40-2CD at 87'
- NE, NW, SE, SW beverages ~500' long
20 - 6 element yagi at 80' fixed NE
- 6 element yagi at 80'
- 6 element yagi 40' fixed NW
- 4 element yagi 60' fixed SE
15 - 6 element yagi at 70'
- 6 element yagi at 35' fixed NE
- 4 element yagi at 50' fixed SE
10 - 6 element yagi at 60'
- 6 element yagi at 30' fixed NE
- 4 element yagi at 40' fixed SE
Callsign Used : KT5J
Operator : K5TR
Category : SOAB
BAND Raw QSOs Valid QSOs Points Prefixes
_____________________________________________________
160SSB 6 6 9 1
80SSB 47 47 116 13
40SSB 848 848 2365 261
20SSB 1098 1098 1745 253
15SSB 1338 1338 3109 531
10SSB 54 54 143 22
_____________________________________________________
Totals 3391 3391 7487 1081
Final Score = 8093447 points.
HR 160 80 40 20 15 10 HR TOT CUM TOTAL SCORE
-- ----- ------ -------- -------- -------- -------- ------ --------- -----
0 --- --- --- 2/1 153/98 --- 155/99 155/99 0.03M
1 --- --- --- 79/41 50/21 --- 129/62 284/161 0.08M
2 --- --- --- 126/56 6/4 --- 132/60 416/221 0.17M
3 --- --- 32/26 31/9 1/0 --- 64/35 480/256 0.25M
4 --- --- 107/39 8/7 --- --- 115/46 595/302 0.35M
5 --- --- 95/50 --- --- --- 95/50 690/352 0.49M
6 --- 5/2 95/35 --- --- --- 100/37 790/389 0.63M
7 --- 12/4 60/19 --- --- --- 72/23 862/412 0.76M
8 --- 3/1 45/10 11/5 --- --- 59/16 921/428 0.88M
9 --- --- 39/12 15/10 --- --- 54/22 975/450 1.01M
10 --- 22/5 37/9 4/4 --- --- 63/18 1038/468 1.15M
11 --- 2/0 63/16 --- --- --- 65/16 1103/484 1.27M
12 --- --- 17/4 41/14 --- --- 58/18 1161/502 1.36M
13 --- --- --- 1/0 119/83 --- 120/83 1281/585 1.79M
14 --- --- --- --- 133/75 --- 133/75 1414/660 2.27M
15 --- --- --- --- 91/43 --- 91/43 1505/703 2.57M
16 --- --- --- --- 90/25 2/0 92/25 1597/728 2.83M
17 --- --- --- --- 101/23 1/0 102/23 1699/751 3.09M
18 --- --- --- --- 121/34 --- 121/34 1820/785 3.41M
19 --- --- --- --- 54/12 23/11 77/23 1897/808 3.67M
20 --- --- --- --- --- 4/2 4/2 1901/810 3.68M
21 --- --- --- --- --- --- --- 1901/810 3.68M
22 --- --- --- --- 25/8 --- 25/8 1926/818 3.76M
23 --- --- --- --- 33/9 --- 33/9 1959/827 3.85M
0 --- --- --- --- 75/16 --- 75/16 2034/843 4.02M
1 --- --- --- 147/22 --- --- 147/22 2181/865 4.29M
2 --- --- --- 8/2 --- --- 8/2 2189/867 4.31M
3 --- --- --- --- --- --- --- 2189/867 4.31M
4 --- --- 13/3 1/0 --- --- 14/3 2203/870 4.39M
5 --- --- 99/14 --- --- --- 99/14 2302/884 4.69M
6 --- 2/0 92/15 --- --- --- 94/15 2396/899 5.01M
7 6/1 --- 4/1 --- --- --- 10/2 2406/901 5.04M
8 --- --- --- --- --- --- --- 2406/901 5.04M
9 --- 1/1 42/7 --- --- --- 43/8 2449/909 5.20M
10 --- --- 7/0 --- --- --- 7/0 2456/909 5.21M
11 --- --- --- 10/1 --- --- 10/1 2466/910 5.23M
12 --- --- 1/1 64/10 --- --- 65/11 2531/921 5.40M
13 --- --- --- 75/15 7/2 2/1 84/18 2615/939 5.63M
14 --- --- --- --- 89/27 --- 89/27 2704/966 6.01M
15 --- --- --- --- 83/24 --- 83/24 2787/990 6.37M
16 --- --- --- --- 82/23 --- 82/23 2869/1013 6.73M
17 --- --- --- --- 25/4 10/1 35/5 2904/1018 6.84M
18 --- --- --- 21/3 --- 2/2 23/5 2927/1023 6.91M
19 --- --- --- 15/2 --- 2/1 17/3 2944/1026 6.95M
20 --- --- --- 67/10 --- --- 67/10 3011/1036 7.11M
21 --- --- --- 106/17 --- 1/1 107/18 3118/1054 7.43M
22 --- --- --- 135/15 --- --- 135/15 3253/1069 7.79M
23 --- --- --- 131/9 --- 7/3 138/12 3391/1081 8.09M
D1 0/0 44/12 590/220 318/147 977/435 30/13 1959/827
D2 6/1 3/1 258/41 780/106 361/96 24/9 1432/254
TO 6/1 47/13 848/261 1098/253 1338/531 54/22 3391/1081
Continent List
160 80 40 20 15 10 ALL
--- -- -- -- -- -- ---
USA calls = 5 32 514 724 405 7 1687
VE calls = 1 2 44 69 61 0 177
N.A. calls = 0 1 20 19 11 5 56
S.A. calls = 0 7 20 28 9 32 96
Euro calls = 0 0 140 175 716 6 1037
Afrc calls = 0 2 4 7 8 3 24
Asia calls = 0 1 3 38 14 0 56
JA calls = 0 0 38 20 88 0 146
Ocen calls = 0 2 64 18 26 1 111
Total calls = 6 47 848 1098 1338 54 3391
Cabrillo Statistics (Version 06g) by K5KA
Callsign: KT5J
Contest: CQ-WPX-SSB
Category: SINGLE-OP ALL HIGH SSB
Operators: K5TR
-------------- Q S O R a t e S u m m a r y ---------------------
Hour 160 80 40 20 15 10 Rate Total Pct
--------------------------------------------------------------------
0000 0 0 0 2 151 0 153 153 4.5
0100 0 0 0 79 49 0 128 281 3.8
0200 0 0 0 126 6 0 132 413 3.9
0300 0 0 32 31 1 0 64 477 1.9
0400 0 0 106 8 0 0 114 591 3.4
0500 0 0 95 0 0 0 95 686 2.8
0600 0 5 93 0 0 0 98 784 2.9
0700 0 12 60 0 0 0 72 856 2.1
0800 0 3 45 11 0 0 59 915 1.7
0900 0 0 39 15 0 0 54 969 1.6
1000 0 22 37 4 0 0 63 1032 1.9
1100 0 2 62 0 0 0 64 1096 1.9
1200 0 0 17 41 0 0 58 1154 1.7
1300 0 0 0 1 119 0 120 1274 3.5
1400 0 0 0 0 133 0 133 1407 3.9
1500 0 0 0 0 90 0 90 1497 2.7
1600 0 0 0 0 90 2 92 1589 2.7
1700 0 0 0 0 100 1 101 1690 3.0
1800 0 0 0 0 119 0 119 1809 3.5
1900 0 0 0 0 54 23 77 1886 2.3
2000 0 0 0 0 0 4 4 1890 0.1
2100 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1890 0.0
2200 0 0 0 0 25 0 25 1915 0.7
2300 0 0 0 0 33 0 33 1948 1.0
0000 0 0 0 0 73 0 73 2021 2.2
0100 0 0 0 145 0 0 145 2166 4.3
0200 0 0 0 8 0 0 8 2174 0.2
0300 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2174 0.0
0400 0 0 13 1 0 0 14 2188 0.4
0500 0 0 96 0 0 0 96 2284 2.8
0600 0 2 91 0 0 0 93 2377 2.7
0700 6 0 4 0 0 0 10 2387 0.3
0800 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2387 0.0
0900 0 1 41 0 0 0 42 2429 1.2
1000 0 0 6 0 0 0 6 2435 0.2
1100 0 0 0 10 0 0 10 2445 0.3
1200 0 0 1 63 0 0 64 2509 1.9
1300 0 0 0 74 7 2 83 2592 2.4
1400 0 0 0 0 88 0 88 2680 2.6
1500 0 0 0 0 81 0 81 2761 2.4
1600 0 0 0 0 82 0 82 2843 2.4
1700 0 0 0 0 25 10 35 2878 1.0
1800 0 0 0 21 0 2 23 2901 0.7
1900 0 0 0 15 0 2 17 2918 0.5
2000 0 0 0 66 0 0 66 2984 1.9
2100 0 0 0 105 0 1 106 3090 3.1
2200 0 0 0 134 0 0 134 3224 4.0
2300 0 0 0 128 0 7 135 3359 4.0
------------------------------------------------------
Total 6 47 838 1088 1326 54 3359
Gross QSO's=3391 Dupes=32 Net QSO's=3359
Unique callsigns worked = 2768
The best 60 minute rate was 160/hour from 0135 to 0234
The best 30 minute rate was 190/hour from 0002 to 0031
The best 10 minute rate was 216/hour from 0010 to 0019
The best 1 minute rates were:
6 QSO's/minute 3 times.
5 QSO's/minute 16 times.
4 QSO's/minute 109 times.
3 QSO's/minute 290 times.
2 QSO's/minute 604 times.
1 QSO's/minute 747 times.
Multi-band QSO's
----------------
1 bands 2289
2 bands 377
3 bands 92
4 bands 10
5 bands 0
6 bands 0
----- S i n g l e B a n d Q S O ' s -----
Band 160 80 40 20 15 10
----------------------------------------------
QSOs 2 17 511 714 1008 37
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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