Gee, That Was a Lot of Fun!

If anyone had told me a week ago I could have this much fun running QRP from Alaska, I'd have said they were nuts.  I started the ARRL 10 meter contest at 5 watts just to test the waters, thinking I would soon grow frustrated and go with a LP entry. 

Encouraged by the initial results, I stuck it out at QRP.  NL7YL's CW QRP AK record has stood since 1991, and I crushed it.  Another KL QRP might beat me this year, but the basic score was very gratifying. I could work just about everyone I could hear.  I even had some brief runs.  Conditions were far from spectacular, especially lacking EU.  

Laboring under some disadvantage with tri-banders no longer horizontal after a month of back-to-back ice and wind storms, it's good to know the station still has some competitive standing.  The QSO count exceeds my lifetime QRP achievement by two orders of magnitude.  I can't complain about that.

Call: KL2R
Operator(s): N1TX
Station: KL2R

Class: SO CW QRP
QTH: KL7
Operating Time (hrs): 10.5

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
   CW:  333    68
  SSB:           
-------------------
Total:  333    68  Total Score = 90,576

P-I-R-A-T-E

ARRL 10M Contest:  So about 2130, I have a good pileup going, and some D-I-C-K starts sending P-I-R-A-T-E on my frequency in sloppy, slow code.  Hey, Jackass!  Learn to copy code!!! Turns out someone mis-spotted me as NL7R.  Bunch of dumb M*F*s!

W4UTE-@        28027.0 NL7R         pirate see qrz.com                 2247 09 Dec   Alaska
W6TMC-@        28023.9 NL7R         pirate see qrz.com                 2115 09 Dec   Alaska

Proud New Papa

Dan Kl1JP recently purchased a factory-refurbished Alpha 89 amplifier. Here he shakes it down at KL2R during the ARRL 10m contest when every watt counted.

ARRL 10M Brings Joy to the Far North

Conditions on 10 meters in the latest ARRL contest were overall excellent from Alaska.  From the Fairbanks and Denali areas, KL1JP, KL6C, WL7BDO, and KL8DX reported spectacular results.  Although there were no true openings to Europe, A65BD did make a brief appearance at KL2R just after midnight on Sunday morning.  South of the Alaska Range, propagation was apparently excellent, too. JAs were plentiful when the eastern US died down.  A number of Asian and Pacific stations were loud but sporadic to appear.  Ten meters seemed to burst to life around 0830 local time and shut down quickly about eight hours later. Some UA9s and UN stations could be worked around 2100 local (0600 UTC).  During the final few hours on Sunday, the band became somewhat unstable, and signals came and went quickly.

Contest         : ARRL 10 Meter Contest
Callsign        : KL2R
Mode            : CW
Category        : Single Operator (SO)
Overlay         : ---
Band(s)         : Single band (SB) 10 m
Class           : High Power (HP)
Zone/State/...  : AK
Locator         : BP64KU
Operating time  : 15h28


 MODE   QSO DUP DXC MLTS  POINTS   AVG 
---------------------------------------
   CW  1271  22  26   67    5084  4.00 
  SSB     0   0   0    0       0  0.00 
---------------------------------------
TOTAL  1271  22  26   67    5084  4.00 
=======================================
         TOTAL SCORE : 472 812

Operators       : N1TX


Soapbox         : That was fun.  Too bad the band never opened to Europe.  Sunday night I heard A65BD at midnight  for about 2 minutes before he faded.  Dang.  A surprising number of dupes.  Hmmm...Thanks to all  who worked me, even if twice for good measure.  You made it a real pleasure.