CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB
Call: NA2U
Operator(s): K2TTT, NA2U
Station: K2TTT
Class: M/M HP
QTH: NJ
Operating Time (hrs): 29:45
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 6 3 4
80: 66 15 39
40: 127 21 63
20: 212 32 86
15: 330 31 101
10: 540 27 106
------------------------------
Total: 1281 129 399 Total Score = 1,931,952
Club: Frankford Radio Club
Comments:
Rig : K3,P3, Ten-Tec Titan (part-time effort)
Antennas :10/15 F12 Mag410/415, 20 HG 204BA, 40 F12 Mag 240, 75 INV, 169 INV V,
listening loop for 80/160, C-4 fixed on South America for 10/15/20/40
As Peter, W2IRT, quoted Dickens, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of
times." Contest started off normally enough. Wait, not quite. When the St.
Louis Cardinals won Game 6 of the World Series on Thursday night I knew I would
not be starting the contest on Friday. As a life-long Cardinals fan I was NOT
going to miss Game 7 (The Cardinals won...Life is good). So Jay
(K2TTT)started. We chose to run Multi-Multi even though we only used one
transmitter. I want to be left unfettered in making band changes and I don't
need a 10-minute rule. We are not going to compete for a top spot regardless
of the category in which we enter so I opt for flexibility in changing bands.
And ours is a more casual operation than most. I relieved Jay after the ball
game. I have never liked working contests on Friday night. I usually find
them unproductive. Worked a couple hours and went to bed.
After a few hours sleep I got up and got back to it. Nice to see great
conditions on 10m and 15m. Snow started falling in late morning. We lost
power around 1830 UTC. Jay was not at home at the time so we were out of
business for about 45 minutes. His house is wired for generator power for
everything running 120 VAC so when the generator started up we went from high
power to low power since the amplifier works on 220 VAC. We still had internet
connection so running with packet spots was still working for us. Fine antenna
set up but did not bother with 80m or 160m low power. The snowfall kept our
third op, N2WKS, from getting to our QTH. We missed the Qs Zev would have made
working through the night. We silenced the generator for the night.
In the morning we awoke to find that we had lost internet connection and we
were without it for the balance of the contest. I used to work SOABLP a lot
but have used packet for almost all contests for the past many years. True S&P
is a drag after working click & shoot. But we pushed on. 10m and 15m got real
interesting late. I worked many zone 24,26, 28 Qs for mults. Went back to 40m
and grabbed a few mults as the contest ended.
I hate phone contesting. It's very physical for me as I tend to scream into
the mike. Probably couldn't work in a room with other phone ops. Listening to
so much SSB over the entire weekend has my tinnitus still raging. But I like
contesting so I do it anyway.
The only good thing about snow is being inside watching it fall. After the
falling, snow is ALL bad news.
Many thanks to Jay and his family for having me in their home for another CQWW.
And thanks to Jay and his sons for digging my car out of the over one foot of
snow. Thanks to all the ops who struggled at times to copy our call.
Best of luck to all in the CW test.
73,
Fred/NA2U
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