ARRL 10-Meter Contest
Call: NR1X
Operator(s): NR1X
Station: NR1X
Class: SO Mixed HP
QTH: Ct
Operating Time (hrs): 25
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
CW: 658 97
SSB: 422 62
-------------------
Total: 1080 159 Total Score = 552,684
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
Well, where does one begin after a weekend like that.(or 2 weeks for some of us)
I guess it all starts at CQWWDX CW weekend with my friends and contesting team
mates at KB1H. Never having experienced any thing like the conditions on ten
meters that we saw that weekend, I was hooked.. Having been on a sort of
hiatus, otherwise known as second shift, I have been missing out on alot of the
contesting I love like NS Sprints every thursday and all of the great CWops
events. Also the fact that a stupid mistake of wireing led my ft 950 to sit on
a shelf for months. These things combined to lead some of my friends and team
mates to question my contesting MOJO. I had something to prove, to myself and
them. I knew darn well that even with the trusty old SB-200 the 5/8wave
vertical antenna wasnt going to cut the mustard for this one. I did have an old
3rd hand mosely ta33jr sitting around that I had been sorely disappointed by
before, but something about traps just rubs me wrong, and I dont have a place
to get a yagi high enough to be of any use on 15 or 20 meters so.... First
victim Mosley.. On to R&D. I went to the website of W4RNL and found some
interesting designs. Then I stumbled across a set of articles he had written
for the 10-10 club and a specific design he wrote about. It is a Bill Orr,
W6SAI design and meant to be easy for a first time yagi builder... PERFECT...
so the mosley ta33jr went into surgery. (after some reassurance from models by
W1UJ) so 1 week befor ethe contest up goes the antenna I have dubbed the
"OrrBikSley" 3el on a close to 12ft boom.. After analyzing it, all the figures
Very closely matched the models. then a weeek long run of getting the station
all in order, amp keying, DVK from N1MM, making a footswitch, and rf testing it
all.
Now for the contest. I took a vacation day on friday so not to miss the first 6
hours of the contest. 2 hours before the contest loud signals from all over the
US and Mexico. KIckoff time, crickets. The band reminded me of 6 meters in
januaray.. spin the wheel across a dead band and listen closely then hit f1
till your fingers bleed. Im not sure how many QSO's or Mults I got that first
night but it wasnt much. Early bed time so I could make the most of the AM run
on EU. Go figure I over sleep till about 9am and had to jump in late. Im sure I
missed a few mults for that one. Once in the chair and having a seat on the band
EU was awesome saturday morning. Run till your working more off the back of the
antenna then turn into the hellfire.. Fun stuff, til you hear every station on
the band fizzle out and its back to 6m in January. Sunday morning a 5am wakeup
from the XYL got me up and coffee going and find a spot. CQing into the great
wall of propagationlessness until it opens up. Then all off the sudden hear
comes the UA's... oooo starting to get excited... never really got any traction
into EU on sunday, but I was there to hear the band open up as much as it was
going to. Had a nice run of USA stations on SSB to keep me busy and catch up to
UJ's qso count, but never could get back the mults I missed out on by sleeping
in on saturday.
Anyway, "OrrBikSley" performed very well as did everything else in the shack.
Can't wait till next year, I can see this is going to be a favorite of mine.
Thanks for all the fun.
FT-950
sb-200
"OrrBiksley" @ 35ft
vertical @ 35ft
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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