The Contest
When Randy, K5ZD, announced that he would not be operating the ARRL DX contests I
immediately informed him that I would be glad to put his station on the air if he was
offering. He said that SSB was a sure thing and he would let me know about CW. Ultimately,
both weekends were available and I was not about to let the opportunity pass.
I flew out from my current QTH in Kansas on Thursday night to set up my FT1000D as the
primary radio and his 765 as the second radio. I also wanted to use my own two radio
switching arrangement as I tried his split headphone solution in last year's ARRL SSB and
could never use it effectively. I am impressed by those (K5ZD, N4VJ, et. al.) who can use
this scheme. It did not take long to get the stuff working and the station was more or
less set. Randy had two suggestions however.
First, he wanted to use the computer to run the FT1000D. I did not have the RS-232
interface for the FT1000D and did not think it was necessary for CW (On SSB it is
invaluable for 40/80 splits). Nonetheless, he had a KIY box and it worked flawlessly. He
also has a problem with his computer where the CT screen would mysteriously change colors
at random times. He suggested using my laptop at the computer to drive his keyboard and
monitor. Once again he had it running in short order. Despite the warnings about Windows
95 and CT, everything looked fine.
On Friday, the plan was to do some errands in the morning, have lunch with a friend,
and sleep in the afternoon. When I returned to Randy's house for the nap, I found that my
key did not work and I was locked outside in the freezing rain. I got pretty soaked as I
repeatedly circled his house trying to find a lock where the key would operate. No amount
of swearing would make it work. Not knowing what to do, I decided to drive to my house in
a neighboring town that I have rented and asked the tenants if I could crash there for a
few hours. Everything worked out and we all had a good laugh when I got back to Randy's.
Everything seemed all set to start the contest when the computer hung as I tried to
program the CW messages. I restarted the computer and the same thing happened. At this
point it was minutes before the start and I was starting to get concerned. After trying
several things, I finally decided to go back to Randy's computer not
withstanding the funny
monitor colors. It had now passed 0000Z and I was not ready. When Randy's computer would
not send either, I started to panic. Just then, Randy came home from work and he got
things working. I had not made a Q yet and I was already mentally spent.
My first Q was at 0015 but I did manage 85 Q's in the first hour. Forty essentially
quit at 0130 and I was off to 80. The 02Z hour produced 89 Q's on 80 and I was starting to
feel pretty good again. Things played well all night on 80 and 160 but the 40 meter
European sunrise opening was nearly non-existent.
Twenty opened at about 11Z and I managed to run off 1237 stations in the next 12 hours.
Around 13Z I started to listen to the multis attempting to run on 15. The rate on 20 was
huge and but I did not want to miss the 15 meter opening. I lost last years ARRL SSB
partly by passing on a mediocre 15 meters to run on 20 and not getting another chance at
the multipliers when the band did not open at all on Sunday. I finally jumped to 15
but could not get much going. I had good but not great rate. I eventually went back
to twenty and returned to 15 later. As it turned out, there was to be no real 15 meters on
the following day.
In the mean time they kept calling on twenty. The continuous action all day and the
ease at which I could get and hold a frequency were incredible. One time when Randy
stopped by to check the score, I simply told him that his 20 meter signal was obscene. 20
wilted at around 1930 and it was off to 40 where I had only had about 200 Q's the first
night. I worked around 400 Q's on 40 in the next five hours. I had 1850/272 at the split
and things felt good.
I managed to keep things going on 80 and 160 including running about 30 stations
on 160 in the 5Z hour. The dreaded 8,9,and 10Z hours produced a total of 12 Q's and 8
mults. In this period I took a refreshing 15 minute nap.
Twenty returned at 11Z and things started hopping again. It shut down a little earlier
on Sunday I went to 40 shortly after 19Z (2PM local). I knew that W1KM was going to be
tough to beat so I promised myself not to let down and push full bore to the end. The last
few hours finished with 63, 59, 44, and 48 Q's.
I left Randy's not knowing W1KM's score and my anticipation rose until mid week when I
learned the disappointing news that I had been beaten by about 70K points.
While I had a 60 Q edge, I was 16 mults behind. It was clear that I had not pushed the
second radio hard enough. All it would have taken was 8 more countries. I actually got to
compare notes with Greg on the Thursday before the SSB 'test (a subject of another story).
After a contesters ritual of exchanging excuses (he had a computer crash during a 20 meter
run, I lost 15 minutes at the beginning, he could only do 700 watts on 80, I did not have
a gain antenna on 80, etc) we compared notes. On the first day, he went to 15 early, got
good rate, and worked many Q's and mults that I never got. At the midpoint I had a slight
lead but he had a big hour on 160 at 01Z and worked 30 mults. I never had the lead
again.
It is always fascinating to compare notes. Although 48 hours is a long time, every
decision is vital and all it takes is a couple mistakes or missed openings to spell the
difference. It is clear that one must make every minute useful and repeatedly
reassess whether you are doing the most productive (Score maximizing) thing possible.
In the end, there are no excuses, skill and experience prevailed, and that is the
way it should be. Congratulations to W1KM on a fine effort.
Continent Statistics
