The Contest
After a narrow defeat on CW, I was ready to grit my teeth and go at it again on SSB. I
arrived at Randy's house on Thursday night and wanted to get everything set up before I
went to bed. I had to partially reassemble the station and make up a few microphone cables
to incorporate the DVP with my two radio switching stuff.
When I was complete, Randy told me that he had a new motherboard and related hardware
for his computer and he proceeded to take it apart. After my experience in the CW contest
I was remarkably calm through the entire process. I talked to W1KM on the phone while
Randy worked his magic. Mercifully, everything came up OK and the station was set before
midnight.
I had left a number of fires burning at work when I left and I knew that I would be
spending most of Friday on the phone. I got about an hour's sleep around noon but spent
the rest of the afternoon handling work issues. This was probably the least amount of rest
I had ever had prior to a 48 hour contest.
I had noticed during Friday that the bands seemed dead and it was confirmed just before
the contest began when I overheard a conversation indicating that conditions were
disturbed and the A index was 34. I started on 40 but signals seemed way down. I tried to
run around calling guys but was getting pounded by W3's, AA1K/3 in particular. After about
20 minutes I QSY'd to 80 where things started well. I finished the first hour with 49 on
80 and 61 overall. It went downhill from there as I could only manage 205 Q's in the next
10 hours. The best conditions were on 160 but the QRN was nearly unbearable. Randy's
beverage works great on 80 but this night was a real challenge. When Randy got up in the
morning he was horrified to see my low band score.
20 was slow to open and did not get active until well into the 11Z hour. After a couple
of good hours I started to listen for a 15 meter opening but the band was really marginal.
I tried a few CQ's up there but could not work much, although I did have a C31 call. I
decide to take a risk and hope for a rebound on 15 on Sunday. 10 meters proved to be more
productive than I expected and I picked up 10 multipliers. 40 was very productive in the
afternoon on CW and it worked well this weekend as well as I managed another 125Q's before
the band closed at 1Z.
At the midpoint I was 1347/280 and way behind last year. I heard lots of whining about
the conditions but was not sure how well I was doing. I was hoping for better conditions
the second night but it was not to be. 80 was slow but I could get sporadic callers
throughout the night. 160 was so noisy that it was nearly useless. Randy had gone up to
KC1XX to operate for a while and stopped by to say that he now understood why my score was
so poor. Conditions were grim.
The whole night was a struggle with no 40 meter European sunrise opening. During the
7-10Z hours there was nothing to work so I took two 15 minute naps and a 30 minute
slumber. One thing of note was the strength of the Pacific signals on 40 both mornings.
The 20 meter opening started about the same time as Saturday but I had a tough time
holding a frequency. The signals were weak and the QRM was brutal. I am usually very even
tempered when I operate but my inability to pull stations through was causing great
frustration. As the morning wore on, I knew I was in trouble with 15 meter mults so I had
to make an effort with the second radio to gather as many as possible.
15 was marginally runnable and I tried the band periodically most of the morning. I did
not gather many Q's but I did well with the mults. I was pleasantly surprised by a late
opening and I worked 23 stations in the 16Z hour. I managed to shore up my pathetic
multiplier number but I was very concerned about the guys to the south of me having a
significant opening on 15 and making hundreds of extra Q's.
When 20 shut down toward Europe, I went to 40 and combed twenty with the second radio.
As it turned out, I could not get answers on 40 and 20 seemed pretty good to Japan so I
ran around calling and running a few JA stations. After an hour I went back to 40 and this
time was able to run another 60 stations before the contest ended.
After narrowly losing the CW contest on multipliers, I pushed the second radio as hard
as I could all weekend and it seemed to help. Unfortunately, the low rates all weekend
made this easy. The other notable difference on SSB was the large number of excellent
multipliers that called on 20. 9L,5X,5H,7X,S9,XU,VU,CN,5N, VQ9,SU, and 9J quickly come to
mind.
Although I had very little rest on Friday and conditions were relatively poor, I never
really felt tired. These 48 hour contests seem to be getting easier as each one goes by. I
think I have learned that the weak moments will pass and, if I can just push through them,
I will catch a second wind.
Overall, after seven years of semi-serious contesting, it looks like I may have finally
won one of these contests. I would like to thank Randy and his wife Connie for their
hospitality and the opportunity to use his relatively simple, yet hugely effective,
station. Randy's station works like no other that I have ever experienced and I wish to
state my sincere appreciation for his letting me use it.
I also owe my wife and kids thanks for allowing me to indulge myself with this contest
stuff. Nonetheless, I am now burned out on radio for a while after two 5-day trips and
48-hour contests in a three week span. I have probably done all of my operating for 1997.
Why are the ARRL contests so close anyway?
73 and Thanks for all the QSO's,
Tom W2SC
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