Reflections on the WW Phone
Contest - 2 weeks
Started with an empty room and assembled a station. All new antennas and feedlines. No
idea what works and what doesn't.
Contest - 1 week
Went to LAX for trade show.
Contest - 36 hours
Woke up Thursday morning. Can't hear out of my right ear. Monday after contest it is
diagnosed as a blockage due to wax build-up. Did the contest with 1-1/2 ears!
Contest - 24 hours
Sit on balconey at Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, CA and watch sun go down. Wonder how I
will ever get home and get things to work. Much less get motivated to do a serious effort.
Contest - 8 hours
Arrive home from red eye flight. Go to bed.
Contest - 4 hours
Wake up and see if station will work. One bad coax to replace. Some computer and DVP
problems to solve. One trip up tower to try to fix 20 meter stack (doesn't work).
Contest
Contest begins with about the conditions I expect. Not too motivated but operate
because I want to see what works. My wife is not happy that I came home and went straight
into a contest. My plan is to quit if ANYTHING breaks!
This is kind of fun. I like the late night band hopping and multiplier chasing...
Sunrise Saturday
Hey! Where are the Europeans! K1AR stops by to chat and we compare numbers. I would
never do this, but I don't really plan to be competitive, so I do. He is 80 QSOs up (wow!)
and 40 mults up (double wow!).
Condx are terrible. No Europeans on 15m the first day! All the signals on 20 have lots
of flutter. Keep grinding away with two hopes: 20m will be better in the afternoon, and
the bands will be better tomorrow. Decide my goal will be to chase after K1AR and try to
catch him on QSOs and let the mults take care of themselves.
Good run on 20 in the afternoon. Next time John and I compare I have caught up enough
to have some hope. The competitive fire and motivation crank up. He caught some Europe on
15 while I was running on 20, but I bet the farm that 15 will open tomorrow.
Keep pounding the low bands all night. Am surprisingly awake, but decide I will sleep
to be fresh on Sunday when the rates will be higher. Make myself go to sleep at 0800z for
3 hours.
Sunrise Sunday
Bands sound better (not great). No flutter on 20 and 15 opens slowly. Work G0KPW on 15
and he tells me their 10m frequency. Put the second radio there just to see if I can hear
him. I can - and they are very loud on scatter! It's an easy QSO so I spend some time
chasing mults on 10. Work DJ4PT, S51AY. Can't get an Italian. Decide I have wasted enough
time and go to 15 to run.
Have an hour over a 100. K1AR immediatly checks in to tell me he just had a 170 hour.
How does he do it? Is it the 4-stack at K1EA or does he just talk real fast? I am
undaunted!
Rest of the contest is a CQ exercise. I didn't use the second radio much on Saturday
but start to work harder on Sunday. It pays off in lots of mults.
Last 2 hours are no good for Europe. Spend my time chasing South Americans on 10/15
(amazing how many of them there are). Work some VEs on 75. Catch 6 new countries in last
10 minutes on 40. Makes for a good ending.
Comments
Activity was definitely down. Bad conditions make it hard for the small stations to
stay on.
160 was great the first night and terrible the second.
This contest was kind of fun. Much like my early efforts from Texas. Lots of hunt &
pounce with occasional runs. Just the way I like it. More fun than the 12 hours of
straight CQing normally required from W1.
Didn't seem to be as many lids as normal (or maybe I just missed them). Only ran into a
few pile-ups that I walked away from because there were too many lids. I did find some
mults just when they came on, but never got through because the packet guys came on so
fast. It is crucial to get through early because once the first packet guy gets a QSO, the
level of competition (some of it very obnoxious multi-ops) goes up.
I publicly admit it. K1AR is pretty good at this stuff. I was operating head down the
whole weekend. This is so easy for John that he beats me AND tunes around the band having
ragchews with everyone. Oh well... maybe next year when I get the 20m stack working!
Continent Statistics
