CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW
Call: 7J1AAI
Operator(s): W1NN
Station: JH1GTV
Class: SOSB/10 HP
QTH: Tokyo
Operating Time (hrs): 23:30
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160:
80:
40:
20:
15:
10: 1331 35 85
------------------------------
Total: 1331 35 85 Total Score = 437,280
Club:
Comments:
Comments
Thanks to everyone for the contacts and the fun. This event beats them all!
This was another operation from the fine station of JH1GTV in the western
suburbs of Tokyo. Shige is always a great host and I always enjoy the
opportunity to operate from his QTH.
Shige?s current antenna is three stacked 5-element yagis with the highest being
at 40 meters. The top antenna rotates 360 degrees, but the two lower antennas
can only be rotated through about 100 degrees ? just enough to move from NA to
EU. Shige installed this, his first stack, early this year after dreaming about
building a stack for more than 20 years. He says that he first began thinking
about stacks after hearing a talk by W1RR from the YCCC during a visit to Japan
over 20 years ago, and he finally got around to building this antenna this year.
If anyone noticed how his signal compared with other JA sigs, please let me
know and I`ll pass the reports on to him.
Conditions were clearly down from eight months ago. I worked around 1,100 US/VE
stations in the ARRL DX CW in February, compared with 669 NA stations this
weekend. I suppose this will seem like an incredible total in a couple of
years.
Things started out reasonably well with a 92 hour from mostly zone 3 and 4. But
without a single Zone 5 worked during that first morning (the contest starts at
9 AM local), I realized that I was unlikely to set any new 10 Meter records this
year. Basically this contest was a feast or famine situation, with good
activity in the early morning from NA, then a long lull during the middle of the
day when you try to keep busy working Asia/Pacific, and then the busy EU opening
in the late afternoons for 2-3 hours. The first day wasn?t too bad during the
lull, and the rate only dropped to the 20 level for one hour, but Day Two was
REALLY BORING with four hours averaging only 15/hour. (See breakdowns below.)
I busied myself by doing some work, doing some yoga poses in front of the rig,
listening to the LUs and PYs CQing, admiring Shige?s persimmon trees out the
window, etc. Asian activity is better than it used to be but there is still a
lot of room for improvement. I worked only 13 BV/BY stations, fewer than I
expected. I wonder why there aren?t more VKs and ZLs active? I only worked 16
VKs and 11 ZLs. There are still a zillion Pacific countries that have little or
no activity. Maybe someday.
The band opened up very well to the US East Coast on morning two (Saturday
evening UCT) and I had a couple of really good hours, but the opening did not
last very long. EU was also quite disappointing both days. Although I had a
pipeline to Zone 20, and I worked plenty of EU Russians, Ukrainians, OKs, etc.,
Zone 14 stations were few and far between. I never worked a single G, ON, CT or
PA. I managed to work just one F, one EA, 2 HB9s and only 19 DLs. I can only
drool at the big mult numbers turned in by even the part-time EU and W stations.
When conditions are good, JA stations have a pretty good shot at both NA and
EU, and can rack up some good QSO totals, but we are at a huge disadvantage in
working the country multipliers.
I was plagued by a couple of annoying problems with Shige?s FT-1000MP. Although
we set the relay at its fastest speed, I was losing the first dot or dash of a
lot of calling stations, requiring time-consuming fills. The relay sounded okay
to me, but this problem persisted throughout the contest. Another problem was
the bandwidth switch. The narrow filter was just a little too narrow for my
liking, so I found myself switching it in and out quite often. It?s really a
pain that this switch can?t be operated during transmit. I remember this
subject being discussed at length on the contest reflector years back and I
thought that the MP did not have this problem. Perhaps it is only the versions
sold in Japan that don?t have this feature?
As N2NL pointed out, the 10 Meter CW band in Asia is a real mess. There are AM
pirates all over the CW portion of the band. I have heard that a lot of these
stations are loggers and transport boats in Indonesia using Japanese HF ham
rigs. Whatever they are, they can be a major problem when the band is wide
open.
Again, thanks to my host JH1GTV for a great weekend and thanks to everyone for
all of the contacts.
73,
Hal Offutt 7J1AAI/W1NN
Breakdown by hour
station: 7J1AAI
contest: CQ World Wide DX Contest______
UTC 160 80 40 20 15 10 rate total
00Z 0 0 0 0 0 91 91 91
01Z 0 0 0 0 0 64 64 155
02Z 0 0 0 0 0 25 25 180
03Z 0 0 0 0 0 20 20 200
04Z 0 0 0 0 0 39 39 239
05Z 0 0 0 0 0 67 67 306
06Z 0 0 0 0 0 67 67 373
07Z 0 0 0 0 0 81 81 454
08Z 0 0 0 0 0 39 39 493
09Z 0 0 0 0 0 2 2 495
10Z 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 495
11Z 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 495
12Z 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 495
13Z 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 495
14Z 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 495
15Z 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 495
16Z 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 495
17Z 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 495
18Z 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 495
19Z 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 495
20Z 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 495
21Z 0 0 0 0 0 67 67 562
22Z 0 0 0 0 0 163 163 725
23Z 0 0 0 0 0 83 83 808
00Z 0 0 0 0 0 54 54 862
01Z 0 0 0 0 0 24 24 886
02Z 0 0 0 0 0 9 9 895
03Z 0 0 0 0 0 9 9 904
04Z 0 0 0 0 0 17 17 921
05Z 0 0 0 0 0 39 39 960
06Z 0 0 0 0 0 63 63 1023
07Z 0 0 0 0 0 98 98 1121
08Z 0 0 0 0 0 18 18 1139
09Z 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1139
10Z 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1139
11Z 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1139
12Z 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1139
13Z 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1139
14Z 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1139
15Z 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1139
16Z 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1139
17Z 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1139
18Z 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1139
19Z 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1139
20Z 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1139
21Z 0 0 0 0 0 42 42 1181
22Z 0 0 0 0 0 77 77 1258
23Z 0 0 0 0 0 73 73 1331
tot 0 0 0 0 0 1331 ---- 1331
QSO BREAKDOWN BY CONTINENT
N America: 669 (50%)
S America: 34 (2%)
Europe: 415 (31%)
Africa: 6 (0%)
Asia: 158 (11%)
Oceania: 49 (3%)
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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