RAC Day VE8RAC(VE8EV) SOSB/20 HP

Call: VE8RAC
Operator(s): VE8EV
Station: VE8EV

Class: SOSB/20 HP
QTH: Inuvik, NT
Operating Time (hrs): 20

Summary:
Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  CW Mults  Ph Mults
----------------------------------------
  160:                             
   80:                             
   40:                             
   20:  260    566      12        12
   15:                             
   10:                             
    6:                             
    2:                             
----------------------------------------
Total:  260    566      12        12 
Total Score = 97,200

Club:

Comments:

292 VE, 7 RAC

For me this turned into two completely different contests.  The first one was Thursday.  All night I had lots of callers and good rate on both modes.  When things slowed down at 0630z I already had 500 QSO's in the log and had bagged all but a few multipliers.  I grabbed three hours sleep and when I got back on things were still pretty slow and just went downhill from there.  Lots of power line noise and very few signals to be heard.  I struggled all day Friday to put 300 contacts in the log over 13 hours.  I spent most of the day on CW as very little was coming through on phone.  There were several zero rate hours around midday and I eventually threw in the towel an hour early, took my toys and went home.  Apologies for all the mangled callsigns and CQing in the faces of callers I couldn't hear.  Better luck next time!

Low points:

- What should have been an easy run of Europeans at midnight turned into a packet frenzy when someone spotted me as a rare IOTA island.  I went split for a while but eventually gave up and retreated to the friendlier waters of the Pacific.

- I'm not a CW guy.  I'm having lots of fun contesting in CW but my 20wpm repertoire pretty much ends after callsigns and 5NN+exchange.  I felt like a deer in the headlights several times when guys felt the need to chit-chat.  All FB, but I'm just not there yet.  Maybe next year...

High points:

+ First contest with the new Flex, all integrated with the touchscreen and N3FJP for CAT, keying and voice.  Sweet!  Not a single hiccup through the whole event and when all the big signals were booming in Thursday night the sharp filter skirts almost brought a tear to my eye.

+ Almost making the dual-mode mult sweep.  I had VY0HL call me on both modes Thursday night and at the end I only needed VY1 on CW and (doh!) NT on phone.

73 and Happy Canada Day!
de VE8EV