2008 ARRL International DX Contest (CW)
02/19/2008 |
KC2TA
This is the second shot at trying to post to the soapbox for this contest; my first seems to have disappeared in the ether!
The question begging to be answered is what happened to 15 meters and WHERE WAS 10? Heard one brief opening on 15 on Saturday and garnered a couple of nice new ones for my count -- VP6DX AND D4C. 10 was nearly useless, got only a handful of q's on Sunday, but the added multipliers did help the score none-the-less.
I had put up a off center-fed dipole for 160 the weekend before the contest and found that the top band is a wonderful place. Having NEVER worked 160 (first licensed 1971) I was like the young college student all over again when I tuned around, even though the majority of the antenna was probably less than 10 feet up. I'm surprised the resident deer in the area haven't decapitated themselves or taken the wire down while running through the area.
It wasn't optimal, but did give me a presence on 160, 80 & 40 that I would have been without. Again managed a SMALL number of q's and multipliers to help the cause, but probably could have done better if there was a way to get the wire through the woods behind my home, other than an aging right arm and a rod & reel.
20, as usual, was my savior. I did manage to get a clear frequency to call cq for about an hour each day, allowing me runs averaging in the neighborhood of about 62 per hour. Tuning the band slowly would result in between 20 & 25 q's per hour, some of which were in pretty tight quarters, allowing me to learn a bit more about the TS-2000 operation.
All in all I did better than my last effort in 2006 multiplier wise (+19), but not quite as well with total points (-15,000). Lost too much valuable time on Sunday tending to a son with a 102.5 fever and the flu, and needing to shut down at 2000Z to do some errands and get ready for a dinner engagement with the parents of my eldest son's fiance to initiate the planning of their wedding. Well, I can make up for it next year -- during a new sunspot cycle?
Had a great time and now have got to get busy writing a lot of qsl's, especially those from 160, 80 & 40 for which I have very few confirmed. -- KC2TA
The question begging to be answered is what happened to 15 meters and WHERE WAS 10? Heard one brief opening on 15 on Saturday and garnered a couple of nice new ones for my count -- VP6DX AND D4C. 10 was nearly useless, got only a handful of q's on Sunday, but the added multipliers did help the score none-the-less.
I had put up a off center-fed dipole for 160 the weekend before the contest and found that the top band is a wonderful place. Having NEVER worked 160 (first licensed 1971) I was like the young college student all over again when I tuned around, even though the majority of the antenna was probably less than 10 feet up. I'm surprised the resident deer in the area haven't decapitated themselves or taken the wire down while running through the area.
It wasn't optimal, but did give me a presence on 160, 80 & 40 that I would have been without. Again managed a SMALL number of q's and multipliers to help the cause, but probably could have done better if there was a way to get the wire through the woods behind my home, other than an aging right arm and a rod & reel.
20, as usual, was my savior. I did manage to get a clear frequency to call cq for about an hour each day, allowing me runs averaging in the neighborhood of about 62 per hour. Tuning the band slowly would result in between 20 & 25 q's per hour, some of which were in pretty tight quarters, allowing me to learn a bit more about the TS-2000 operation.
All in all I did better than my last effort in 2006 multiplier wise (+19), but not quite as well with total points (-15,000). Lost too much valuable time on Sunday tending to a son with a 102.5 fever and the flu, and needing to shut down at 2000Z to do some errands and get ready for a dinner engagement with the parents of my eldest son's fiance to initiate the planning of their wedding. Well, I can make up for it next year -- during a new sunspot cycle?
Had a great time and now have got to get busy writing a lot of qsl's, especially those from 160, 80 & 40 for which I have very few confirmed. -- KC2TA
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