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CQWW DX SSB 2010 @ N1LN

A late recap being better than none at all…..

The multi-2 operation at N1LN went off well again this year.  The bands were not as good as we hoped they might be, but 15m came through much better than it had in 2009, so that was a welcome improvement in propagation.  10m teased us with a bit of a South American opening on Saturday afternoon, but time there was mostly Search and Pounce.  As always, operating the N1LN station is a big change from 100-w into a low dipole.  But it has challenges of its own.

When set up for Multi-2, N1LN has two stations with one radio each.  So there is no mult radio in an SO2R configuration like many other Multi-2 stations.  But that’s not a limit on having fun operating.  It’s more an upper limit of the possible Q’s.

For my own part, I’m still learning the subtleties of operating a good station with good antennas.  It is a lot more complicated than the home QTH, but not really rocket science either.  More a matter of accumulating experience and a better understanding of what propagation conditions might present at any given time in the chair.  N1LN came up with an excellent operator schedule, which I hope gave everyone a taste of the possibilities and enough chair time to keep them interested.

20m and 40m were both quite challenging.  It was difficult to find good places to establish runs, and there was a high level of QRM whenever the bands were open.  Never really got a good run going on either band.

10m was a pleasant surprise.  The Saturday afternoon shift brought a nice round of mults and almost 100 Q’s.  Most of the stations  worked were South American, Carribean and a couple of EA stations.  15m was also open, but the rates on Saturday afternoon were not as good as during the morning opening.

On 80m and 160m noise was a factor.  N1LN had added a few toys to the sandbox since last year.  The first was a K9AY RX antenna, which allowed operation without swatting at N4YDU’s hand as he switched the beverage off the station I was trying to copy.  Also new was a 2-element phased array on 160m.  That was pretty cool too.  The endfire directions showed good rejection off the rear, and while on 160m it was possible to listen on the xmit antenna and switch to the rx antenna only on the weaker signals, at least the short time I operated on 160m.

Claimed Score:

Call: N1LN
Operator(s): N1YDU, W4KAZ, KA1ARB, N4GU, AA4FU, N1LN
Station: N1LN

Class: M/2 HP
QTH: NC - 05
Operating Time (hrs): 48

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:  150    14       36
   80:  337    28       85
   40:  589    34      104
   20:  947    36      125
   15: 1049    34      128
   10:  156    17       36
------------------------------
Total: 3228   163      514  Total Score = 5,628,578
*
http://w4kaz.com/n1ln/2010_cq_ww_ssb_n1ln/

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