KL3UI Makes First QSO As General

Wes KL3UI, who is a prodigious HF contester with the KL2R team, recently upgraded to general.  It was a happy day for all, and he celebrated with a contact with W1AW/9.  His mentor Dan KL1JP made the film at the KL7FWX shack.

Sweeps SSB 2014

We did a lot of work over the past two months to prepare for the 2014-15 contest season.  For one, we added a two-element, phased vertical array for 40m.  It is a well-engineered system (mostly) from DX Engineering components and proved to be a great listener.  The 20-30 dB front-to-back is impressive, and it has compared very favorably to a Force12 EF-140 dipole at 120 feet for receiving.  Casual contacts have shown it to be very effective in busting DX pileups as well as ragchewing between here and the Lower 48.

A second addition is the FTdx5000MP, which was previously owned by long-time member Gary NL7Y.  The operators had some learning curve, and we learned quite a bit more about its functions.  The receiver does not leave you fatigued.  To reduce the likelihood of operator fatigue in general, we rotated ops every hour.  "On deck" meant they were tuning The FT-950 for multipliers on the second position.

Since the FTdx5000MP has the SM-5000 Station Monitor, we moved the FT950 + DMU-2000 combination to position #2.  Both radios with band monitors is extremely helpful.

Fun and fellowship.  At one point we had six people in the shack, 100% over capacity.  New-new guy Wes KL3WY stopped by and introduced himself Saturday afternoon.  Elaine KL6C got us out of the gate on 10 and 15.  KL1JP had a very good run, and KL3WY jumped in and lent a hand as well.  KL3UI got plenty of air time, and Carl WL7BDO rounded out the heavy lifting.  Each one of the 419 QSOs was hard-won.

Respectable Showing in ARRL DX

2014 ARRL International DX Contest (Phone)

Displaying entries for Class=MM and Division=Non-US

Entries 1 to 9 of 9 listed

#	Call	Score	QSOs	Mult	Class	DXCC Entity	Continent	Club
1	II9P	7,466,391	7,688	327	MM	I	EU
2	LP1H	6,049,953	7,605	267	MM	LU	SA
3	HG1S	5,431,968	6,354	288	MM	HA	EU
4	JA3YBK	3,454,908	4,568	254	MM	JA	AS
5	C6ANM	3,015,699	3,651	277	MM	C6	NA	Yankee Clipper Contest Club
6	KL2R	1,439,955	2,924	165	MM	KL7	NA
7	JE1ZWT	1,091,196	1,815	204	MM	JA	AS
8	LI5O	581,544	1,195	164	MM	LA1	EU
9	9A5BWW	339,465	1,882	61	MM	9A	EU

Guest op AC0W led the charge with the usual cast of characters at KL2R pushing hard into a respectable #6 place worldwide in the DX listings.  We used a multi-2 configuration.  

ARRL DX SSB 2014

Despite low bands absolutely stinking all weekend, 10m allowed some really great rates.  In the end, 3000 QSOs and 1.465M claimed score. That was largely thanks to a really strong crew at KL2R this year. Guest operator Bill AC0W (left) and new prodigy Wes KL3UI (right, above) complemented the usual suspects Carl WL7BDO and Dan KL1JP (seated).

 BAND   QSO S/P DUP  POINTS   AVG 

----------------------------------

  160     0   0   0       0  0.00 

   80     0   0   0       0  0.00 

   40     8   4   0      24  3.00 

   20   530  50   8    1584  2.99 

   15   533  53   5    1596  2.99 

   10  1877  59  49    5625  3.00 

----------------------------------

TOTAL  2948 166  62    8829  2.99 

==================================

     TOTAL SCORE : 1 465 614