[TVARC] ARRL 10M Contest

[George Briggs]

Well, wasn’t THAT special?  Conditions were SO bad that they masked the fact that I had
blown out the front end of my K3 transceiver just before the contest began.  I got a hint
that there was a problem when I could hardly hear Pete (K2PS) when he called me on SSB.
Then Dennis (N0SMX) texted me that he was calling me but I wasn’t answering him.  I kept
suspecting that the problem was in the little two-element beam that I cobbled together
for the contest, so I replaced it with a hastily-made dipole.  No change.  So I flipped the
antenna switch over to Karen’s (KN4GQP) Kenwood, and suddenly I could hear signals.
DX even!  Phooey!  The K3 will be making another trip home to Elecraft.
So I swapped out the blown K3 with my spare K3 for the final 27 hours of the contest.
Conditions STILL stunk, but at least I could hear some stations.  Thank goodness I wasn’t
serious about making a score in this contest.  I sat down to operate a number of times,
but only for about five minutes per time.  Just long enough to see if the band was open
or if any new locals had shown up.  I ended up making a whopping 19 QSOs.  I managed
3 DX, and the rest were all with Florida stations.  If it weren’t for TVARC members I would
have had only 13 QSOs.  Thanks K2PS (x2), N0SMX, KA1AF, ND4G, N4FP.  I missed Ralph
(N8RW) and probably others.

73,
George K2DM
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