CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW
Call: 8P5A
Operator(s): W2SC
Station: 8P5A
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: Barbados
Operating Time (hrs): 45
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 319 14 52
80: 550 18 71
40: 1974 33 103
20: 2605 34 107
15: 1768 29 105
10: 830 18 32
------------------------------
Total: 8046 146 470 Total Score = 12,292,896
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
This proved to be the most challenging contest in years from this station.
The CQWW was the culmination of a longer trip. Our younger daughter got
married the weekend before and we flew out earlier the prior week to help her
get ready. They planned a truly spectacular weekend that left us very happy,
but physically and emotionally exhausted.
The following Monday we flew to Barbados. It was exciting to see the island
decorated to celebrate its 50 years of independence.
It was the usual long, hot process of setting up the temporary antennas but it
all came together well. While the station was shaping up, my wife and I were
still recovering from the wedding.
On the CQWW SSB weekend, some very severe, but intermittent line noise
developed. We spent a few hours one day before the contest and may have
located the offending pole. No hope of a repair before the contest, but have
been successful getting these remedied in the past. Will try to get it
resolved by our next trip
When the contest rolled around, I felt my energy return and the station was
ready except for the line noise. I got off to a decent start when I noticed
that the second radio was occasionally keying when I was transmitting on the
first. It quickly got worse and I had to stop. My first thought was that a
cable partially pulled out and was shorting the CW lines to both radios, but
that was not the case. One or the other transmitter was keying, but not both.
My second thought was an RF issue, but they would key even when I was not
attempting to transmit. I then restarted the logging program and then rebooted
the computer, but the problem persisted. Next was to swap serial ports but no
luck. No amount of swearing seemed to help either. I have an identical spare
SO2R control box and did the swap, which required moving 30 cables. This
solved the problem, but I still do not know the root cause. After operating
for a bit, a key piece of station software was not working and I could not
select antennas. Stopping and starting the software multiple times debugging
the prior problem left things in an unstable state A clean restart of both
computers finally got everything going again but I only had 50 Q's in the first
hour, and 200 after two.
Pretty demoralized, I pushed on. Things continued to work until I got to 80.
The line noise was brutal and remained that way all weekend. It was just too
unpleasant to spend much time there and the final score shows it. Usually, I
am pleased with the 80 meter totals, but this was not the case this year.
Later that night on 80, I noticed that the power on the Left radio had jumped
to 1500W from 1000W. I figured that I hit the power knob on the K3, so I just
turned it down. When I went to 160, I noticed the same thing and turned the 160
power level down. When 40 showed the same issue, I figured something was wrong.
The amp was not reporting increased power so I guessed that the wattmeter was
the problem and put the settings back to the original. Post contest I found a
damaged resistor and, instead of turning the power down from 1.5K to 1K, I was
turning it down from 1K to 600W.
After some head shaking, I pushed on. I managed to get back to on pace for my
personal best QSO total by morning. By the midpoint, I was about 450 above my
best best pace. The difference was the power of dual CQing. It makes a huge
difference and a necessary skill for a successful single op effort.
Murphy was not done, on the second day, at 15Z, during the limited Europe
running time, the power went out. To be honest, it had been a very frustrating
weekend and I would have perfectly happy to have the power never come back on.
Eventually it came back and, after rebooting the computers, was ready for the
push to the end.
Finished with a QSO total about 650 over my previous best, but it was struggle
to sustain intensity and a test of my determination all weekend. Station
reliability is a source of pride, but not this time. It is the first time that
I can recall that a failure of my automation hardware cost me more than a minute
of downtime.
There turned out to be more to the story. When taking the station down, I was
removing the coax for my 80 meter array toward Europe when one of the PL-259
connectors came off in my hand. Another thing I cannot recall at the station
was a failed PL259, and this was on a cable assembly that was purchased with
the connectors installed. Not sure how that impacted my 80 meter signal, but
it likely was not helpful.
All of the issues notwithstanding, TI5W and ZF2MJ were in a class by themselves
and I would not have been competitive with them had everything gone perfectly
for me. Great job by Dan and Chris.
Clearly a difficult weekend, but still had some great moments. Thanks to the
CQWW committee for putting on a great event, and thanks for all the Q's.
Also thanks to my wife Kathleen whose support is invaluable, especially when I
was having trouble in the first hour. It was not my best behavior.
Been a great year of contesting from Barbados and looking forward to 2017.
Congratulations to Barbados on their 50th anniversary just a couple of days
after we left. It is a source of justifiable pride for the people that have
been so welcoming and supportive of my family.
73, Tom W2SC
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
______________________________________________
3830 mailing list
3830@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/3830
|