Station Description
Radio 1 - Yeasu FT-1000D + Alpha 76CA
Radio 2 - Yeasu FT-1000D + Ameritron AL-1200
Tower 1 - 100' Rohn 45G
40-2CD @ 110'
205CA @ 100' / 50'
5-el 15 @70' / 35'
80m Inv Vee with top at 95'
160m 1/4-wave GP with 4 elevated radials
Tower 2 - 90' Rohn 25G
6-el 10 @90' with 4/4 @ 60'/30'
40m 1/2-wave sloper to west
80m wire 4 square hanging from tower with 16 radials per vertical
160m shunt feed tower with 32 radials
Tower 3 - 40' Rohn 25G
TH7DXX at 40'
Comments…
A truly fun weekend!
With a heavy work travel schedule and trying to take two MBA classes, I
let my wife talk me into not doing the contest seriously. Operated the
first 3 hours and then went to bed. Woke up early, did some DXing on the
low bands and then CQed for awhile. Took the dog for a walk and ran some
errands. Worked more guys. Then went off to meet a classmate to work on
a school project. Came back and had dinner. Now almost 23 hours into the
contest and I had already taken 12 hours off.
Decided to see how the bands were. Still good! Decided I would stay up
late and see what I had missed by sleeping the first night. Set goal of
working 300 countries. Finally made myself quit at 3AM and went to bed.
By now, the contest bug is starting to bite. Woke up 3 hours later and
decided to crank up the QSO machine and see what I could do to get the
QSO totals respectable on all bands. At the 24 hour mark of operating
time I had 4Meg. Almost quit then, but still having too much fun.
Still 8 hours of the contest to go. Can't stop because YCCC president
N1XS has exhorted everyone to keep their butt in the chair. Got this
crazy idea that maybe I could sneak into the Top Ten box. Kept CQing and
doing the SO2R thing.
Score kept going up. Ended with an exhilarating run on 7000.6.
Almost wish I had done the whole thing, but probably wouldn't have had
as much fun. Winning CQ WW is hard. You have to keep pushing all the
time and make sure you get good frequencies on the hot band. There is no
time to rest or relax.
By sleeping the first night, I had no pressure and was able to go DXing
when I got tired of CQing. It actually helped me be more on the right
band than if I had been trying. Not to mention how much more fun (and
accurate) it is to operate with enough sleep.
Only ran into a few packet pileups. Most of the time I would just keep
tuning.
Did work TO4WW on 40. Had no idea where it was other than zone 39. Turns
out to be an ALL TIME new one for me! (He was listening up 1-2 KHz and
it was exactly the right thing to do. Who says you can't work split in a
contest?)
7S2E was still loud on 40m at 1130Z. Wow. On Sunday morning, 40m was the
best I have ever heard over the pole to Japan. 40 was wall to wall all
the way up to 7100. My best runs Sat night were on 7085 and 7076.
Managed to work 2 JA stations on 80 Saturday morning.
160 was funny. Heard lots of stuff Friday night but it couldn't hear me.
Saturday managed to work a few Eu, but it wasn't worth it. Didn't matter
because 80 and 40 were so good.
Overall operating was excellent. No real frequency fights. Less than the
usual number of dupes. Most people got my call right. Didn't seem like I
got spotted as KH7D this year.
As always, amazing how many stations made big QSO totals that I never
even heard. Was really searching for N5TJ at KP3Z and only worked him on
1 band! He had over 6000 QSOs! Worked VP9I, A45XR, and JY8YB on only one
band. ZD8Z on 2 bands. Heard A61AJ on 160, but only worked him on 2
bands. That's part of what makes this contest great. But also why packet
is such an advantage of the multi-ops. It is just too easy for the good
stuff to get lost in the noise.
Breakdown below. I assume rates were better than normal on day 2 because
I hadn't worked everyone on day 1.
Continent Statistics
