CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW (2019)

CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW - 2019

Call: NR4M
Operator(s): NR4M K7SV K4ZW
Station: NR4M

Class: Multi-Op HP
QTH: FM18
Operating Time (hrs): 35:06

Summary:
Total: QSOs = 1449 State/Prov = 57 Countries = 70 Total Score = 702,945

Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club

Comments:

Comments de K7SV

The 2 el 90 foot Tee transmit antenna was working well as were the NE, NW AND SE
beverages and the 8 circle rx antenna. Friday night the band wasn't working so
well. Eur was simply not hearing US stations well. Eur stations that are
normally loud and hear well were loud but not hearing well. Everyone to the west
as far as KH6 had decent signals and were hearing well. Lar felt bad in turning
it over to Ken around 06Z things were so bad.

While things weren't stellar the second day, they were much better than the
first. Our friends to the east were hearing us better. A few Eurs would answer
our CQs from time to time and we worked a few S&P. As Eur sunrise approached
things got better and when Ken relieved Lar around 06Z we had a great Eur run
going.

While we worked three KH6s nothing was heard west of there. We saw a few mults
spotted that we couldn't hear as they were running but as luck would have it we
did hear them as they were search and pouncing. Going up a few khz and calling
CQ didn't fish them in. There were a few mults that we heard well but simply
didn't hear us.

There were a few annoyances during the weekend. One was key clicks. Over the
years this has gotten better, but there are a few big stations that have killer
clicks if they are within a khz of you. It really ticks one off to have a good
run going only to have a station fire up below you, not close enough to hear
their signal but close enough to put S5 key clicks in our 400hz passband. There
wasn't a lot of frequency encroachment but one was a bit novel. The station
using a special call fired up within 150hz of us with an S9++ signal. I told him
the frequency was in use. I zero beat him and told him we had been 100hz up for
the majority of the evening. The response was something to the effect "I
know, why don't you move up a bit". This guy is (was?) a friend!

Worked 270 DX stations, not including Canada.
Best one hour rate was 142 q/hr.

The 160 CW demonstrated that we're ready to go for the ARRL CW DX on top band
anyway. Thanks to Steve and Carolyn for hosting us.