[PaQSO] Raw scores from W3JXP

[John Passaneau]

Hi to all:
This was my second year working the PAQSO party here in Center County. Its
is the only contest I work with any serous effort. This year I had a new
radio, and "new" amp and an almost new antenna system.
The radio is a FT1000mp Mark5 field and the amp is a like new SB221 with the
10m mod. Last year I had a Kenwood TS450SAT and old Denton amp. The
difference in receive performance is unbelievable. With all the interference
fighting tools in the FT1000mp and the great receiver performance it was a
pleasure to operate on the crowed bands. The new antenna was a home brew
80/40 trapped dipole with a parallel loaded 160m dipole shortened to 200' up
about 32'. I put the antenna up and tuned it to the part of the bands used
most in the PAQSO party. It was a very big pleasure not to need a tuner on
any band. It was also the first real 160m antenna I've ever had. Last year I
used my 80m dipole and a tuner. Looking at it with EZNEC I found out just
how bad of an antenna it was on 160. With checks before and after putting up
the new antenna, the new one was 25db stronger and I could for the first
time hear band noise. The SWR of a 80m dipole on 160m is so high that the
excess line loss is 19db and the loss through my tuner is about 7db, nicely
accounting for the 25db. Anyway it worked much better. I put it up as a
temporary antenna, but it works so well, I'm going to redo it a bit and
leave it up. I also added a MFJ voice keyer this year and this time I could
talk after the contest was over. It was a very nice addition to the shack.
And I add my vote to move the Friday night net away from the loony
frequency.
 In the end, I had a lot of fun and I bettered my score from last year.

The raw score, all on phone, here is:
160m- 55 contacts
80m- 272 contacts
40m- 380 contacts
20m- 444 contacts
15m- 3 contacts
143 muilt
and worked W3KWH 3 times
Score: 165022 +  600 bonus points for a total of 165,622

This is about 218 more contacts than last year and I worked all 67 county's
for the second time. The large number of 20m contacts are in part due to
working about 40+ Europeans Sunday afternoon. I was working west and keep
getting calls from Europeans off the back of the beam, when it became slow
to the west, I turned the beam to europe and had a pileup and worked them as
fast as I could until the band went out, lots of fun. I also noticed the
drop in 80m contacts. I have no idea why that was but it was noticeable. I
also worked allot of mobile stations, not just in PA but all over. Many more
than last year, I guess that HF mobile is exploding in popularly. I'm
looking forward to next year and thinking about how I can improve my station
some more.


73
John Passaneau W3JXP
State College, Pa
w3jxp@adelphia.net