CQ Worldwide DX Contest, RTTY
Call: W6QU
Operator(s): W8QZA
Station: W8QZA
Class: SOAB QRP
QTH: San Diego, CA
Operating Time (hrs): 33.7
Summary:
Band QSOs State/Prov DX Zones
------------------------------------
80: 8 6 2 2
40: 53 19 8 9
20: 62 16 20 18
15: 300 35 62 26
10: 117 24 32 18
------------------------------------
Total: 540 100 124 73 Total Score = 348,381
Club: Southern California Contest Club
Comments:
Rig: Yaesu FT-817
Antennas:
10-15-20 3 el SteppIR up 32 feet
40 DX-LB trap dipole up 32 feet
40-80 Butternut HF-2V Vertical
--------------------------------------
I am delighted to finally take part in the major RTTY contests now that they
have started a QRP category!
Conditions were decent, but not great. A measure of how good conditions were
is the percent of my QSOs into Europe, which is a long haul for 5 watts from
out here on the west coast! 30% of my Qs were into Europe, and almost all were
on 15 Meters. I did work 12 Europeans on 10 Meters, but I never got the great
10 M opening I expect to get later in the season.
I slept 4 hours each night which worked out better than trying to get by on 2
or 3 hours. I actually ended up with a few more hours of op time (according to
N1MM) because I was able to stay at the rig when I was awake.
I did not have any amazing QSOs, but several notable ones. On 10 M I got a VK6
(always nice in a contest that counts zones!) and an FO. On 15 M I got 9M6,
5W, 5B, VR, BV, and GJ. On 20 M an OH0 and UN. Nothing surprising on 40 or 80.
My DXCC for the contest was 71 countries and WAZ was 28.
I actually tried CQing at the last hour of the contest. It seemed it might be
quite difficult to get the hang of, but I studied the macro keys, and went way
up the band on 10 M and it actually worked out pretty well. I got about 7
USA/VE stations over 20 minutes or so and then tried CQing toward JA in the
last 5 minutes and got 2 more JAs. A third called, but was off frequency. I
will get the RIT operational next time!!
I had one funny glitch happen that cost me about 20 minutes. Suddenly my Astron
power supply went dead. This had just happened a month ago to another old Astron
so I wasn't too surprised. After all, I had bought this one in a swap meet. I
started trouble shooting and at one point I actually tried using a 1.5 amp
"wall wart". After all, this is QRP! But even at QRP the voltage
dropped a couple of volts when I keyed the rig. Suddenly I saw that the light
on the power strip was off. I had accidently kicked the switch off with my foot
as I was stretching during a pause in the activity. ....That was certainly a
first!!
So now that there is a QRP category in CQ WWDX RTTY, contest season starts a
month earlier. It doesn't get any better than that!
73, Bill Parker W8QZA / W6QU
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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