RAC Canada Day Contest - 2022
Call: K3KU
Operator(s): K3KU
Station: K3KU
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: MD
Operating Time (hrs): 15
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs CW Mults Ph Mults
----------------------------------------
160:
80: 26 5 6 4
40: 120 40 9 8
20: 90 26 10 8
15: 40 2 3 2
10: 3
6:
2:
----------------------------------------
Total: 279 73 28 22 Total Score = 113,000
Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club
Comments:
My Canada Day saga began a couple of weeks before Field Day, when I decided to
retire my TS-850SAT and replace it with a TS-590SG. I had planned to use FD as
a shakedown cruise for the ‘590, but wound up operating only a couple of hours
toward the end of FD. I did not get the expected “fresh meat” effect – I
was able to make QSOs only on 40M, and I was unable to make any ‘phone QSOs.
Uh oh.
During the few days after Field Day I got ready for Canada Day – clear the
deck from Friday chores (thank you, wife), finish setting up a larger monitor,
set up N1MM+, double triple check that the new external autotuner will match my
dipole on all bands. (The autotuner in the ‘850 pretty much did the job, but
the ‘590 could not quite handle it. My 200-ft long tree-supported dipole
probably presents some weird impedances at the TX end.)
As Thursday moved toward 00Z I took a little nap and tried to relax. But the
station’s poor performance on FD nagged at me. Could the ladderline feeder be
broken again??? We’d had a lot of high winds lately, and the feedline had
been whipping around like crazy. Should I lower the dipole and check the
feedline? The job will take only 30 minutes… unless the antenna gets snagged
going back up. I decided to seek expert advice: I asked my wife. After all,
this was mostly a psychological issue, not technical. “Check the antenna,”
she said (thank you, wife), so I did. It checked OK… I hope. The nearby 50KW
AM BC station on 1500 KHz makes measurements kind of tricky, even with a
low-impedance VOM.
I knew that high-band multipliers will be important, and that I’d have to be
alert for openings on 15M and 10M. I’d also have to be aggressive; most of
the competition will have beams on the high bands. So, a few minutes before the
start I tuned around 15M CW and found VC7X getting ready. I called in, chatted
for a moment, and hinted that I would be happy to be their first QSO. 15M did
not sound very active, so I took a quick look at 20M SSB (where I expect lots of
activity from Canada) and found… VC7X, getting ready. I called in, and they
noted that I was also on SSB.
I stayed on 20M SSB for the start, got the VC7 and a few others, including VE4YH
(Go, RSM!). I nabbed a VX3 (Go, short skip!) and worked a K5 for my NR 5, his
NR 25 (Who is he working??? I can’t even hear that many stations!). I jumped
up to 15M CW; a VE7 and an LU. (Ugh!). I scooted down to 20M CW, which produced
a little rate, with many Canadians, from mixed S&P and CQ. I logged K5KU
(Gotta love that call!), VE3RUA (Go, RSM!), AJ6V (who lived down the hall in my
college dorm), VY1AAA (Great to have you back, but we’re both liars:
“5NN”, sure), VA4HZ (Go, RSM!), and KV0I (TU NEB; no big deal here, but HPE
CU SS).
And so it went – cycle through the “open” bands, struggling for SSB QSOS,
better success on CW. Propagation not very good; lots of noise (even the new
radio cannot make that go away). 80M was so weak and noisy that I did not bother
to look at 160M. VE4VT (aka VE4RAC) remarked in his report that people should
have been looking for sporadic E-skip. I looked, Ed. I looked and looked, but
did not find.
Multiplier totals were a little disappointing. I did manage to move two
multipliers, all from CW to SSB: a VE9 on 20M, and buddy VE6TL on 15M. Toward
the end of my operating a tried to find a BC to move from 15M CW to SSB, but the
ones I found were running strong, but not loud, and I felt it was better not to
try interrupting their runs. I did hear a VE8 running on SSB; I forget why I
missed him – either he QRT or there was too much competition (the bag of
tricks for a low-tier SSB signal is much smaller than for CW).
I knew I would have to end an hour or two early for my Friday evening shutdown,
and that I would miss a couple of hours for other obligations and food. The
rate got so slow around 07Z that I slept in the chair for an hour. Then, Friday
afternoon we got an unexpected out-of-town family visitor, and our daughter and
grandson come over to see him. That took out another hour and hastened my end
time (but worth it!). N1MM+ says 8:40 off; adding the several short breaks for
house tours, I figure that I was QRV for about 15 hours. It felt like more, but
was less than I had planned. But what a blast!
K3KU will not be QRV for Canada Day 2023, but I hope to see you all in 2024.
Happy Canada Day!
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