North American QSO Party, SSB - January
Call: AA4LR
Operator(s): AA4LR
Station: AA4LR
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: GA
Operating Time (hrs): 10
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 28 14
80: 193 38
40: 156 37
20: 92 28
15: 80 18
10: 6 2
-------------------
Total: 555 137 Total Score = 76,035
Club: South East Contest Club
Team:
Comments:
Antennas:
Cushcraft A3S/A743 at 15m (40-10m)
80/40m trap dipole at 10m (80m, 40m)
Shunt-fed 15m tall tower (160m, 80m)
Equipment:
K2/100 w/ KAT100 running 100 watts
Kenwood TS-430S w/ AT-250
K1KP-style voice keyer (1 message)
Comments:
Glad I got the opportunity to put in a full effort on this one. Not quite a 10
hour effort, with the numerous small breaks, and I had a hard stop just after
0500z.
Started about 25 minutes late. I was really hoping to find good conditions on
15m, possibly 10m. Very disappointed. 15m was quite long, and 10m was barely
open, but virtually no one was listening or calling there. When conditions are
like this, I think I often mess up my score by expecting to get more from 10m
and 15m. I keep returning to these bands in case a miss something, hoping to
catch an opening, and this keeps me off 20m or even 40m. Really, though we
haven't had good conditions on 10m since 2005,
By the time I really hit 20m in the 2000z hour, it was already sorta long, so
we didn't have the short propagation conditions we need to really rack up the
Qs here in GA. Still I could get good rate by hunting and pouncing on 20m, and
even managed a short run in the 2100z hour.
The other thing that messes me up on these conditions is the feeling that if I
go to 40m before 0000z, I'm missing out on something -- spending time working
stations on 40m would be easier to work later in the evening. In retrospect, I
shouldn't have worried so much, and work a bit of 40m sooner.
With 20m closing down about an hour after sundown, it would have made more
sense to push 40m. Oh well, by the time I learn, we might actually have good
conditions. 40m really felt like the money band. I found three or four
different places to run. I felt loud on 40m. The trap dipole works well, and it
is great to be able to switch between the NE/SW trap dipole and the rotatable
dipole on the A3S going NW/SE.
80m was very noisy. I managed to find a nice spot high in the band. I had steer
clear of several ragchewers. After about 8 minutes, a couple of ragchewers
started up about 1 kHz above me, completely tearing my frequency up. I barely
managed to finish a contact with WF7T. Really annoyed me. I wanted to shift up
there and give them a piece of my mind about interfering with ongoing
communications, but I didn't want to sit through any 5 minute monologs about
cancer treatments. I moved up even higher and had a good run.
The evening was shaping up to be a pretty standard effort in these poor
conditions -- maybe 50,000 points. Then the magic happened. Just after 0405z, I
found a clear place near 3830 kHz and an amazing run started. I worked 82
stations in less than 40 minutes. I probably could have continued for another
20 minutes there, but decided I needed to go to 160m to pick up a few more
mults there. Virtually all these contacts were on the trap dipole -- the
vertical was rarely better.
Anyway, a pretty good outing for a not-terribly-serious effort.
Oh. I checked the SO2R box, but I didn't do more than listen with the TS430 in
the first 30 minutes. I had a report of bad audio on 10m, so I unhooked my
homebrew SO2R box for the rest of the contest.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
Bill Coleman, AA4LR, PP-ASEL Mail: aa4lr at arrl.net
Web: http://boringhamradiopart.blogspot.com
Quote: "Not within a thousand years will man ever fly!"
-- Wilbur Wright, 1901
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