Class: SO-Restricted-24 LP
QTH: FN03es
Operating Time (hrs): ~20
Summary:
Band QSOs Bonus Pts
———————–
80: 34 600
40: 68 1,100
20: 148 820
15: 1 20
10:
———————–
Total: 251 2540 Total Score = 3,775
Club: Contest Club Ontario
Comments:
Radio: Ten-Tec Orion
Antenna: DX-Eng 80/40 Thunderbolt 55ft Dual Band Vertical
Software: N1MM Logger+ 1.0.9018.0
A few notes on my usual points: propagation, motivation, stamina, running.
Propagation, in a word, “wasn’t” (as in “wasn’t there”). Again. This year there was an additional layer to my standard statement “There is only so much you can do with LP and an 80/40 vertical”: a layer of noise and very strong QSB. I had to constantly ask for repeats. Stations going from 599+ to below my noise level within one transmission. Getting just one digit of the exchange per repeat and then parsing/pasting it together (hopefully right) was the name of the game most of the time. Noise I could deal with better this year; I still do not have an RX antenna, but I had installed a phase noise canceller and it seems to be helping quite a bit. But that QSB thing was a killer.
The rest of conditions as per usual for the last few years: 10 and 15 pretty much dead (I only had one Q on 15, with ZF2CA who was consistently very loud on all bands other than 10, where I heard no one); 20 m – average, just uncharacteristically low signals, nobody seemed to be strong; 40 – OK by my standards, and the way ZL6HQ/2 was coming through the second morning: wow! if everybody was that loud and clear, all frustration (and fun?) would be gone; 80 m – noisy, but otherwise OK; just really long stretches of “nothingness” because of my set-up.
Hearing my “locals” carry on with good rates of running, while I cannot hear a thing, reminded me of my place on the totem pole: below the big guns, below little pistols, below BB guns, amongst the “pea shooters”.
Motivation, I thought I had this time. No distractions and full commitment to go 24 hours. (My N1MM+ shows ~20 hours of operating time.)
It was the stamina, that I had not. I could make excuses that it is not really “morale boosting” when your Q rate in the last 7 hours of a contest is exactly 1 QSO/hour. But it was the stamina that failed me – utterly. Several times towards the end I found myself falling asleep, sometimes for extended periods of time. Probably it would be better, if I had a “pre-emptive” nap for an hour or two, rather than trying to plough through. The early morning hours of the second night, before the SR opening to Oceania, are totally unproductive with my set-up anyway.
On the positive side: because I did not pack it in early, I worked V31MA (with small 2-digit exchanges from him, must have started late) on both 80 and 40 in the very last stretch of the contest.
Running while “legally deaf” proved necessary again. Without it, and without people who can -amazingly- hear me and answer my CQ, I would not make many Qs, some unexpected and very rewarding, like in my runs on 20 that produced VK6LW, 5Z4VJ, ZD7BG, 9J2BO, ZS1C among others. Thanks to all who answered.
As usual it was tough slogging with LP and an 80/40 vertical. And the realization that I am not becoming an “old geezer”, I am already there, did not help. However, I see an effective solution to this: I should consider moving to the ocean side 100+ acres property with phased vertical arrays, stacked monobanders and assorted beverages. I do not know when, or if, that will happen, but, wherever my QTH is next year, I bet I will still like this contest very much. See you next year…
As usual, it’s the emptiness of a giant arctic ice floe out there… when you are running low power to a vertical
.