CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW
Call: P40W
Operator(s): W2GD
Station: P40W
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: Aruba
Operating Time (hrs): 44
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 355 18 57
80: 826 22 81
40: 1275 32 90
20: 1883 36 110
15: 1762 30 100
10: 434 15 24
------------------------------
Total: 6535 153 462 Total Score = 11,915,625
Club: Frankford Radio Club
Comments:
Station: IC756ProII, TenTec Titan 425, 1 KW
Antennas: Force 12 5el 15M @ 82', Force 12 5el 10M @ 77', Force 12 4el 20M @
72'
2el 40M wire beam (US/JA) @ 70', 160/80 Inverted V @ 70', Force 12 C4 @ 60',
4el 40M wire beam (NE/EU) @ 60', 3el 80M wire beam (NE/EU) @ 60'
800' term. beverage NE, 450' term. beverage NW, 500' unterm. beverage E/W,
500' unterm. beverage N/S
Software: CTWIN
A Story -
My having the opportunity to enjoy the 2005 CQWW CW was a wonderful gift from
above. You see, 19 days before the WW CW contest I suffered a heart attack.
The doctors told me afterward I was very fortunate - I had sought medical help
just before it could have been very bad. And the care I received was swift and
life saving. I am blessed and thankful. When I left the hospital 3 days later
it was already apparent my heart muscle had been spared permanent damage, and I
was cleared to return to Aruba for WW CW a week later. Life style changes,
better diet, and medications will hopefully extend my good fortune for several
more sunspot cycles. Thanks to so many of you who sent words of
encouragement!
With a new lease on life, I arrived on Aruba the Monday afternoon before the
contest with high hopes for a strong showing ...I had something to prove to
myself. Unfortunately, my luggage (containing the IC756ProII and other station
items) did not make the flight from Philadelphia and would be delayed until the
following day's flight. Sigh.....
It has been a very active rainy season this year on Aruba, and I found the
island as 'green' as I have ever seen it over the last 19 years. In just over 3
weeks since my last visit for WW PH the desert had sprouted more plant life
everywhere. Nature can be such a wonder, and at the same time so very
punishing.
My plan for the week was to take it easy, just do the minimum amount of physical
work needed to prepare the station for WWCW, postpone all non-essential routine
maintenance (like tower painting) until my next scheduled visit in 2006, and
spend more time at the beach swimming and relaxing. (Note: I expect to have
P40W QRV for the ARRL DX CW, ARRL DX PH, and CQ160 PH contests in Feb/Mar).
After CQWW PH in October, I left most of the antennas and station cabling in
place. It took just a half day to string out the ends of some wire antennas and
make a few minor repairs. By Tuesday afternoon, all was ready....I just needed a
radio to make final checks and adjustments. The airline called at 2 pm. Tuesday
to tell me the bags would be available at 5 p.m. When I arrived to pick them
up, I did a double-take....sitting there in the airport was fellow FRCer
K2QM/PJ4M. Dan was waiting for his connecting flight to Bonaire. What a
pleasant surprise...we chatted for 30 minutes.
With the xcvr now in hand, Tuesday night was spent testing antennas, amplifier
operation, and just plain listening. Noise levels on 80 and 160 were high,
even on the beverages. I was already becoming concerned it would another
contest weekend with high noise, a repeat of CQWW PH when Tropical Storm Beta
just to the north made things very difficult. This time around it was Tropical
Storm Delta...but predictions were for it to move further away by weeks end.
Fortunately as the days passed the QRN slowly vanished. There were no visible
T-Storms over in YV-land either after Tuesday night. CQWW CW would turn out to
be an exceptionally quiet low band weekend....the 2nd best in memory from Aruba
over the past 19 years.
On Wednesday afternoon, other operators began to arrive. KK9A/P40A flew in from
NC to do SOAB QRP, most of the P40L M/S team from CA arrived, and WX4G/P40J from
FL to do SB40. Briefly saw the P40L guys before they headed off for lunch. I
preceeded on to go to the beach and later visited P40J. Bob's luggage was
delayed too...but it would arrive on that evening's AA flt. from Miami. We
enjoyed having dinner together, catching up. But he wasn't feeling well, and in
the morning booked himself a flight back to the states with the flu coming on.
Maybe next year.
Thursday was another sunny day.....in the mid-80s F. Some breeze too. Joined
the P40L guys for lunch and later for Thanksgiving Dinner (at Tony Roma's of
course - ribs and chicken). Also spent another few hours enjoying the beach,
and paid a visit to Phil, WB4FDT and his XYL, who were visiting friends on the
island. Unfortunately Phil applied too late to receive his P4 license in time
for the WW contest.....but he plans to return for ARRL DX next year.
Friday was the "do very little" day for the week as always. The plan was to
check everything out one last time, go to the food store, turn in the rental car
at the airport, then sleep for 6 hours. As it turned out, I could only sleep
for 3 hours. Found myself listening to the bands....trying to decide where to
start. At least this afforded me plenty of time to get things ready for the
bell. I'm normally very rushed.
Thirty minutes before the contest started it was obvious 40M would be the place
to start since 20M was stone dead. What I didn't know at the time, but sort of
figured out over the course of the next several hours, the MUF had actually
dropped close to or below 7 mhz. The ratio of EU to US/VE contacts was very
lopsided in favor or W/VE on 40M. Under normal conditions, the ratio would have
been exactly the opposite. The silver lining here - high rates working W's the
first several hours on 40 while propagation between the US and EU was
significantly surpressed. 212/214/104 over the first 2.5 hours on 40 - a near
perfect start!
Transitioning to 80 and then 160 proved to be productive. The rate on 80
remained near 200/hr. Spent the entire 0300 Z hour on 160....pulling down 36
mults. EU was loud and workable...and the band was very quiet. I hung around
160 maybe a little too long into the 0400 hour but that 24 mins. brought 10 more
mults. Back to 80 with good rate....the 3 ele 80 wire beam is working well.
Continued to bounce back and forth between 160/80/40 until sunrise. I normally
sleep from 0800 to 1000 but the rate was OK, and I didn't feel tired so decided
to go without sleep.
Then 20M kicked in after sunrise for some 190+ rate for a few hours before 15M
came to life to EU and the States. Kept checking 10M and sure enough the best
opening of the weekend on 10 started about 1430. It was rough sledding all
weekend on 10...not a single EU heard/worked just like WW PH. Sigh.
Back to 15M for the best hour of the weekend (234). A second 10M openning
occured at 1730 but it was 40 minutes long. Back to 15m for another 209 hour
before gradually migrating down to 20M. Wall to wall bedlum! But a few more
200+ hours added to the log.
At 2230 I simply had to get up and do something else for awhile. First time out
of the chair since the start.....had a snack, washed up, etc. It helped bring
me back to life.
I probably stayed on 20M a little too long, 40 was much better at 0000. But this
is the period in most contests I spend too much time being a DXer looking for
mults and not enough time running. The rate sheet tells this story. One of
these year's I'll get it right. Added another 20 mults on 160, 9 on 80, and a
healthy 22 more on 40M before deciding to sleep at 0800. Set the alarm for
1000, slept through it, luckily becoming conscious as the sun came up at 1030.
The remainder of the contest was rather unspectacular. Conditions didn't seem
as good as the first day, ten never opened, so ended up spending most of the day
on 15M where the rates were must average at 140 to 160 an hour.
When the bell rang at 2359, I still felt alert, the score was my best in many
years, and the total numbers on 160, 80, and 40 were my best ever. And I'd
managed to kept my butt in the chair over 44 hours.....
On Aruba we have a traditional post contest dinner (one of the advantages of a
small country) where we all get together to swap stories. It was great to break
bread with the P40L team, P40A, P43E and WB4FDT. A nice way to decompress.
Congratulations to Jose, CT1BOH @CT3EN for his great effort, and to all the
others who made this year's WW CW a fun experience. See you next year....
73, John W2GD/P40W
P40W CQ WORLD WIDE DX CONTEST Single Operator 27 Nov 2005 2359z
160 80 40 20 15 10 ALL percent
CW
North America CW 249 417 728 1101 1078 411 3984 59.7
South America CW 12 12 12 24 32 20 112 1.7
Europe CW 98 397 516 664 662 0 2337 35.0
Asia CW 0 3 32 115 8 0 158 2.4
Africa CW 5 7 10 13 15 7 57 0.9
Oceania CW 0 3 5 13 6 0 27 0.4
BREAKDOWN QSO/mults P40W CQ WORLD WIDE DX CONTEST Single Operator
HOUR 160 80 40 20 15 10 HR TOT CUM TOT
0 ..... ..... 212/35 ..... ..... ..... 212/35 212/35
1 . . 214/9 . . . 214/9 426/44
2 4/5 79/25 104/6 . . . 187/36 613/80
3 136/31 . . . . . 136/31 749/111
4 15/10 99/16 . . . . 114/26 863/137
5 . 163/18 . . . . 163/18 1026/155
6 68/6 64/6 . . . . 132/12 1158/167
7 . 119/12 . . . . 119/12 1277/179
8 ..... 36/6 95/11 2/4 ..... ..... 133/21 1410/200
9 . . 69/22 . . . 69/22 1479/222
10 6/2 6/7 5/2 67/37 . . 84/48 1563/270
11 . . . 188/15 . . 188/15 1751/285
12 . . . 201/15 . . 201/15 1952/300
13 . . . 49/0 142/35 . 191/35 2143/335
14 . . . . 84/13 122/20 206/33 2349/368
15 . . . . 103/5 83/6 186/11 2535/379
16 ..... ..... ..... ..... 234/9 ..... 234/9 2769/388
17 . . . 1/1 47/2 127/5 175/8 2944/396
18 . . . 1/2 205/16 3/1 209/19 3153/415
19 . . . 140/4 58/2 . 198/6 3351/421
20 . . . 203/8 4/0 . 207/8 3558/429
21 . . . 217/6 . . 217/6 3775/435
22 . . 1/1 46/7 8/10 . 55/18 3830/453
23 . . 5/2 148/6 . . 153/8 3983/461
0 ..... ..... 139/7 ..... ..... ..... 139/7 4122/468
1 . . 36/15 . . . 36/15 4158/483
2 . . 172/2 . . . 172/2 4330/485
3 66/9 1/1 12/1 1/1 . . 80/12 4410/497
4 . 106/1 9/1 5/4 1/1 . 121/7 4531/504
5 23/9 50/2 . . . . 73/11 4604/515
6 36/2 44/5 . . . . 80/7 4684/522
7 . 54/0 34/3 . . . 88/3 4772/525
8 ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... 4772/525
9 . . . . . . . 4772/525
10 . . . . . . . 4772/525
11 . 3/2 1/0 87/3 11/0 . 102/5 4874/530
12 . . . 136/3 22/1 . 158/4 5032/534
13 . . . 13/2 142/7 2/2 157/11 5189/545
14 . . . 2/2 164/1 . 166/3 5355/548
15 . . . 15/8 87/9 1/2 103/19 5458/567
16 ..... ..... ..... 4/4 103/8 1/2 108/14 5566/581
17 . . . 2/0 160/3 . 162/3 5728/584
18 . . . 8/1 59/2 89/1 156/4 5884/588
19 1/1 . . 5/2 124/3 6/0 136/6 6020/594
20 . . . 128/9 3/3 . 131/12 6151/606
21 . . . 99/2 1/0 . 100/2 6251/608
22 . . 15/0 115/0 . . 130/0 6381/608
23 . 2/2 152/5 . . . 154/7 6535/615
DAY1 229/54 566/90 705/88 1263/105 885/92 335/32 ..... 3983/461
DAY2 126/21 260/13 570/34 620/41 877/38 99/7 . 2552/154
TOT 355/75 826/103 1275/122 1883/146 1762/130 434/39 . 6535/615
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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