ARRL DX Contest, CW
Call: W1MU
Operator(s): W1MU
Station: W1MU
Class: SOAB LP
QTH: Maine - FN53
Operating Time (hrs): 37
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 43 27
80: 157 49
40: 289 71
20: 917 82
15: 576 81
10: 123 54
-------------------
Total: 2105 364 Total Score = 2,298,660
Club:
Comments:
This was my first ever ARRL contest where I entered in the all band category and
actually had antennas for all bands! My goals were to have fun, get some sleep
on both nights, and report a raw score of 2 million points. I succeeded at all
of those.
The highlights were many, but the stand-out was the very neat 10M opening on
Sunday afternoon long after propagation tables would have suggested. The
opening had a resemblance to the multi-hop E-skip openings we see in the summer
on 6M, with perhaps some additional enhancement by another anomaly (maybe
aurora?). It was the same time of day when we see those openings and it had the
same ?feel.? Signals coming out of the ?serious? north (SM, OH, OH0) had the
signature auroral ?buzz.? I?ll allow my propagation expert friends to assess
how this opening came about, but it provided for some additional mult gathering
and was a pile of fun. Many thanks to the UR station who came on to my 20M run
frequency Sunday afternoon after I?d been there for about 45 minutes, told me to
QSY because the frequency was ?vy QRL,? and started calling CQ. I elected to
stay, using my notch very effectively, but after awhile I decided that life was
too short and by chance went up to 10M to find this very nice opening. Tnx OM ?
I?d rather be lucky than smart any day of the week.
Other highlights were the presence of a handful of African stations on 10M
(V51AS, 5H3HK, ZS1EL, S9SS), superb multiband efforts from the Caribbean and
South America (ZF2TJ, PJ2T, PJ4R, FM5BH, V47Z, HI3TEJ, 9Y4W, VP5Y, VP5/WJ2O,
P49Y, TI3M), and a great turn-out from Europe. I was especially impressed by
the large number of QRP and low power efforts from EU. By the way, KP4KE is one
gutsy guy going with a QRP effort on 160M but he sure was loud up here in New
England. Finally, I was glad to be able to work a number of the Asian Russian
stations (UA9, UA0).
The lowlights were few and far between, but they were there. As is too often
the case in DX contests, with the exception of 4K4K I was unable to work any
central Asians (UK, UN, EX, EY, EZ) and the Pacific was generally missing. I
worked one VK, two ZL?s, and KH7X. Thanks for the points and the mults, but
where were the other guys?
One of these days I?m going to figure out how to work long path openings with
low power. I tried looking at the usual times and frequencies but just can?t
seem to get it to work for me.
I took numerous breaks along the way and I was able to get some sleep on both
nights. My operating time was 37 hours, minus a bunch of breaks, so my
effective operating time was probably more like 35-36 hours. An average of 5-6
hours of sleep, each night, seems to work for me and in the future that?s about
where I?ll draw the line. For you guys who ?stay in the chair? you have my best
wishes for happy and healthy Monday mornings after the test.
As for score, I set out to go for 2 million points and had hoped to get there
with 1800 Q?s and 375 mults. By Saturday afternoon I could see that the mult
count was falling short and I knew I would have to raise my QSO target and get
smarter (or luckier) about finding mults. I ended up with 2105 Q?s (before
de-duping) and 364 mults so I recovered a little from multiplier deficiency
syndrome (MSD) and reported 2.3 meg raw. I hope that the score stands up
sufficiently in the scoring process so that I get my 2 meg. Using MASTER.DTA I
had a large number of unique callsigns in my partial check window and I have a
nervous feeling about many of my Q?s. On numerous occasions I asked for repeats
and felt I had the callsign right, but only that big U/B/N demon in the sky
knows for sure. Some of the special occasion callsigns make it tough to be sure
you?ve got it right and I congratulate our friends in Europe for coming up with
some very creative special event and commemorative callsigns!
Thanks go to the many members of the contesting community who have offered their
encouragement to me and urged me to try contesting over the years. I have
steadfastly resisted those urgings but finally decided to give it a try and
their help has been very much appreciated. Special thanks go to friends K1VR
and K1JX, two VERY smart guys.
Gear here was an ICOM 7800 @ 100W, yagis on 10-40M, and wire antennas on 80M &
160M. Thanks to all for the QSO?s and see you next year.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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