The Contest
As usual, this contest begins well before the contest. Under intense pressure from my
wife, I am considering skipping (or at least minimizing) my effort in the contest. Then
K1AR informs me he is going to do a multi-single. After finishing second to him two years
in a row, this is indeed a good thing to hear. I tell my wife that I have to operate for
this rare chance to win. Doesn't matter -- I am still in trouble.
On Thursday, K1AR informs me that he is going to be single op after all. By now, I have
my contest mind set in place. No way I can not do the contest. Escaping to assisted class
has no appeal. I guess I will try one more time to beat him.
Put my son to bed at 2350Z, and get on the air. K1AR is on 14150 working JAs. I am
searching vainly for a frequency. He works over 100 the first hour while I have only 54.
We remain about this same number of QSOs apart for the next 36 hours!
40m was great. MUF to Europe stayed above 7 MHz all night, but there were less stations
listening up than usual. Called lots of CQs and got very few answers. Did get called by
3V8BB for one bright spot.
All Friday night everyone was complaining about static. Really not a problem for me.
The Beverage helped a lot and I never really felt like I was having trouble hearing.
Worked 200+ QSOs on 75 the first night which is pretty good compared to my normal total.
160 was OK but the Europeans were having a lot of trouble hearing too. Managed to work
5 of them right at their sunrise.
Saturday morning saw 20m have a teaser opening around 10z. Some of the EU were loud but
could not hear at all. I concentrated on the LF bands knowing I could get all of them
later. Finally, at 1044Z I found a frequency and got a run going. Worked 193 QSOs in the
next 84 minutes -- WOW!
Switched to 15m and heard K1AR already running near the bottom of the band. Took the
first clear spot at 21.237 and called CQ. The next hours were as good as it gets without
going to the Caribbean. Worked 749 stations in the next 5 hours -- all on the same
frequency. It was incredible to see the 100 QSO rate meter just keep going up and up. This
was certainly the best run I have ever had in a DX contest.
Just to make things interesting, in the midst of all this rate I notice that the sky is
getting darker. Almost turns to black. Is that thunder? My wife comes in to inform me that
she has been hearing thunder for awhile and it is getting closer. We don't have
thunderstorms in New England in October! When the front finally hit, the wind and rain
were incredible to watch. But with the rate meter so high, I couldn't stand to stop. Three
of the highest and most memorable runs I have ever had have been during thunderstorms. Why
is that? The storm was over in less than an hour and there was no damage. Surprisingly,
there was no rain static during the entire storm. And it even cleared up my line noise.
After a quick scan of 15m, then 10 for a few QSOs, it was back to 20 for three good
hours. I kept checking 10m all day on the second radio and never heard a signal until
after 17Z. Was amazed to hear that KM3T worked Europe.
After the Europeans began to fade, the JAs came booming in. They don't seem to respond
to K5 calls as well as K1's, but it beat trying to scratch out QSOs on 40 and 75. Just
over 2000 QSOs at the 24 hour mark with a score of 2.6 Meg. Set my goal at 5.5M
(considerably better than last year's 3.3 Million).
The low bands were better the second night. But the rate was pretty slow. Finally
decided to focus most of my effort on 160 since that is where the easiest multipliers were
likely to be found. Worked 24 countries on 160 Saturday night. Most of them either very
low (below 1820) or very high (above 1855). That is the only place they seemed to be able
to hear. Got a few answers to CQs, but it was more productive to just keep tuning and
catch guys as they came out of the noise.
Slept from 0755z to 0950z. Was surprisingly awake but took a nap so I could survive the
high band runs the next morning. This is the first DX contest in a long time that I
actually got plenty of sleep in the week before. It made a HUGE difference.
Sunday morning started as a repeat of Saturday. Big hour on 20 then made the jump to
15. Amazed to hear K1AR on the band edge (you multi-multi guys are not supposed to allow a
single op to do this!). I went up a few kHz and started calling CQ. Conditions were not as
good as yesterday. Yet every time I listened to John he was running as fast as he could
go. In a three hour period, he worked 250 more stations than I did (and I wasn't doing
that bad!). The contest was over! Slightly demoralized, I made beating KM3T my new goal.
Since I couldn't get anything going on 15m, I tried 20m. Was very surprised to find
14.150 empty (where was KM1H?!). I called CQ and had two good hours. The band edge is
definitely a magical place. There was little QRM, lots of stations calling, and some
interesting multipliers that called in. No wonder people fight so hard for this spot. Just
as the frequency cratered on me (FG5BG started up just below), KM3T showed up and finished
me off. Dave is just far enough away that he is not too loud here and I guess he just
ignored me until he won the frequency.
Decided to scan the bands and found 15m packed with loud Caribbean. Checked 10m and it
had some loud signals (PJ9B was 30 over). There is nothing more fun than S&P on a
virgin band. Worked 69 QSOs in 54 minutes -- all from zone 7,8,9,10,11,12,13. Even got a
few answers to my CQs. The 16 new countries helped the score a bit too!
The rest of the contest was just CQing on 20 with the main radio while tuning with the
second radio. Tried 40, 80 and 160 during the last hour but nothing too exciting.
If you asked me two weeks ago for a score prediction, I would have been happy with 3
Meg. Never expected what we got. Although the longer the solar forecasts called for quiet
conditions, the better 15 got. With the big rates on 15 and 20, this was a fantastic
contest. Even if I did have to finish 2nd to K1AR for the third year in a row! I think I
will get a guest op to go after him for next year...
Misc Notes
- I did not hear a single station working by call areas all weekend.
- Did not hear or get stuck in a single packet pile-up. If I heard one I just kept
going.
- Enough said about last two letters!
- When you boot up a CT log with 5.5M, a message appears at the bottom of the screen
saying "Do you want to operate at K1EA?" Yes, I think I would.
Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
Randy Thompson, K5ZD
Continent Statistics
