2009 ARRL International DX Contest (CW)
02/24/2009 |
KA1J
Rig: K3
Class: SOAB
Total Score: 172,725
330 QSOs & 175 multipliers
Inv L on 160 & 80 and a Butternut HF9V for the rest. Now have about 60 130' radials with half on a salt marsh and the rest on the bog beside it. Both L's use the first tall tree beside the marsh for the support. The Butternut also uses the same radial field.
K9AY for diversity Rx on the K3 Sub
Knew it was going to be a long contest when I started getting telephone calls regarding work about 60 seconds into the contest. Arc between a plate cap and the choke blew out both and the fuses in the PS within the first hour of the contest. A trip to Radio Shack for the fuses and a rummage through my magic box came up with all I needed to get back on the air but the damage to the contest score was done.
Realizing my plans of doing a sincere effort were thwarted, I tried finding a new one for Total DXCC count and working more on 160 & 80 DXCC. Was finally rewarded with V63MY on 40M around 9:00AM, a new one for all band DXCC! and I worked several new ones on 160 & 80 so the effort was nicely rewarded.
Amazing how well 40 held up. Did little there though, only migrated to it when 160 & 80 dried up. The butternut on 20M is not assertive so went to 15 where there was some interesting contacts to be made but 90% on 15M was SA. 10M was dead for me except for the few local stations I could hear calling CQ. Just for fun I listened to 6M but nothing on the butternut.
Need to use a different contest software other than Logic 8's internal contest software. It does work well but needs a couple of rough areas smoothed out where a hot-key fix or two would help to avoid multiple key strokes which takes time. Probably better to find a specialty contest software that will allow me to export the data into Logic afterward to maintain my 30 year QSO/QSL/DXCC database.
The diversity reception on the K3 was most helpful in marginal conditions. Would not have likely worked the V6 without it, the band was definitely closing.
Hope we worked each other!
73,
Gary
KA1J -- KA1J
Class: SOAB
Total Score: 172,725
330 QSOs & 175 multipliers
Inv L on 160 & 80 and a Butternut HF9V for the rest. Now have about 60 130' radials with half on a salt marsh and the rest on the bog beside it. Both L's use the first tall tree beside the marsh for the support. The Butternut also uses the same radial field.
K9AY for diversity Rx on the K3 Sub
Knew it was going to be a long contest when I started getting telephone calls regarding work about 60 seconds into the contest. Arc between a plate cap and the choke blew out both and the fuses in the PS within the first hour of the contest. A trip to Radio Shack for the fuses and a rummage through my magic box came up with all I needed to get back on the air but the damage to the contest score was done.
Realizing my plans of doing a sincere effort were thwarted, I tried finding a new one for Total DXCC count and working more on 160 & 80 DXCC. Was finally rewarded with V63MY on 40M around 9:00AM, a new one for all band DXCC! and I worked several new ones on 160 & 80 so the effort was nicely rewarded.
Amazing how well 40 held up. Did little there though, only migrated to it when 160 & 80 dried up. The butternut on 20M is not assertive so went to 15 where there was some interesting contacts to be made but 90% on 15M was SA. 10M was dead for me except for the few local stations I could hear calling CQ. Just for fun I listened to 6M but nothing on the butternut.
Need to use a different contest software other than Logic 8's internal contest software. It does work well but needs a couple of rough areas smoothed out where a hot-key fix or two would help to avoid multiple key strokes which takes time. Probably better to find a specialty contest software that will allow me to export the data into Logic afterward to maintain my 30 year QSO/QSL/DXCC database.
The diversity reception on the K3 was most helpful in marginal conditions. Would not have likely worked the V6 without it, the band was definitely closing.
Hope we worked each other!
73,
Gary
KA1J -- KA1J
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