North American QSO Party, CW - August
Call: W8FN
Operator(s): W8FN
Station: W8FN
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: NTX
Operating Time (hrs): 8
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160:
80: 44 25
40: 250 47
20: 266 43
15: 15 8
10:
-------------------
Total: 575 123 Total Score = 70,725
Club: DFW Contest Group
Team: DFWCG Stegosaurus
Comments:
This one proves that it's a really bad thing to have lousy antennas when
conditions are poor. Saturday afternoon at the start the whole contest was
effectively on 20. There were a very few weak signals on 15 to work. Even N2IC
was barely out of the noise most of the time. Signals were weak on 20, too,
which makes using two radios difficult. I was also frustrated to find that all
my recent expenditure of time, effort and money in upgrading the transmit
bandpass filters was rendered mostly ineffective by some sort of local power
line rectification that generates harmonics modulated by a strong 60 Hz
component.
I managed to get a decent run going on 20 for the first couple of hours, but it
eventually died. I had worked everyone I could hear on 20 and 15 by 3.5 hours in
and took an extended break. By then the contest was more work than fun. A brief
return to 20 after a couple hour break gave me a few more S&P QSOs, but by
then 15 was totally empty. I decided to knock off until nearer sundown when 40
would be worthwhile.
Restarting on 40, things got better and after a S&P tour up the band I
settled in for a bit of running. I had a decent rate for a couple of hours,
picking off a few 2nd radio QSOs on 80. Many of the calling stations were right
at the noise level, making it slow going at times. I finally went to 80 S&P
for the next half hour or so. My 80 meter antenna is pretty bad, and it was
hard enough to get heard S&P, let alone trying to run. By 0445 I had had
all the fun I could stand and pulled the plug.
Let's hope conditions will be a little better for next January's NAQP running.
Thanks to everyone who worked hard to pick my puny signal out of the noise on
80.
73...
Randy, W8FN
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