CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW
Call: KL7RA
Operator(s): NN1N
Station: KL7RA
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: AK
Operating Time (hrs): 47
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 109 9 8
80: 492 22 33
40: 706 30 83
20: 1517 33 100
15: 1438 36 109
10: 1559 31 71
------------------------------
Total: 5813 161 404 Total Score = 8,154,856
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
It's always amazing to me how fast the operating hours go by. If you want to do
it all over, and it's the day after the contest ended, it seems that you had a
pretty good time. :-)
I visited KL7RA and his band of FB ops and people during the W1AW/KL7 event
earlier in the year. During this period Rich and I hatched his cunning plan to
bring me up to Zone 1 for the WWCW. As this large station is usually used for
multi-multi class events, and now having some experience in Zone 1, I jumped at
the chance to command this place for one weekend. I am very glad that I rolled
the dice. Apparently, even though each time I have been in Alaska now and
conditions have been great, it usually _isn't_ like this.
My home station was suffering a bit from equipment and antenna problems (lost
the 80m square to logging, etc) and I was not going to do an AB effort from
home anyway, so the Zone 1 fun was very welcome -- and I enjoy challenges.
Yea, I know how to do SO2R. But, and I mean _but_, operating SO2R from AK
isn't the same as from W1. There is this thing about signals staying in the
auroral zone. While the bands were open well, all the EU signals went through
the auroral zone. The pile-ups from EU instantly became unmanageable thanks
mostly to the fact that all the signals went into the "AU blender"
and turned into this raspy, echoey, bleating [expletive deleted] mess through
which normal pile management did not apply. So, back to the 1st sentence, what
I knew about SO2R didn't apply nor matter. All attention needed to be focused
on pulling a call from the blender somehow. With all the non-stop calling and
all the signals being the same strength (including mine back to the EU callers)
it became more of a challenge to stop the pile from calling long enough so that
they could tell it was me returning with a call and make a QSO. And of course
they thought that tail-ending when I might be able to discern a signal was a
good idea, so frequently that left me unable to confirm I had the first call
correct, and then the others in the pile joined-in, and well, sometimes two
minutes would pass for a QSO to be made. Frequently I was able to stop the
callers by using a 20 second burst of dits (for you KL7s this might be a useful
strategy in the future) so that they could tell it was me transmitting and not
just another EU caller calling non-stop. After a while in each EU pile up, I
simply gave up and moved. Finally, on Sat night 20 Meters opened-up with only
about 50 percent blender goo and I was able to log a few hundred EUs.
I never did a careful tuning of the bands like I do from W1. Full attention
was paid to the run radio. I missed a lot of mults for sure. When I tuned, I
was looking for a spot to CQ. Condx were too good dang it :-) I know, it's
not always like this.
I am happy overall with my strategy as it developed along with the band
openings. It was a blast having the fun of running North American stations for
a change and for points! CBS reports my best hour at 249 -- it felt better than
that with the last-100 Q rate frequently above 264 with the last-10 rate hitting
over 415. That was fun. And it dawned on me after about 24 hours how uniquely
placed in the world KL7 is -- so far west and north, yet with _complete_
geographic radio coverage of all of North America! Only VY1EI was in true
scatter mode :-) And condx were good enough so that a band opening to the
lower 48 and Canada was truly that -- I could work anyone. What a blast. I
don't remember it being this good from the Caribbean. Of course, yes Rich, I
know, it isn't always like this...
It's hard building a big station in New England. Multiply that difficulty
factor by about 100 and you have Alaska. We are all lucky that someone like
Rich built a station like this and came back for more when he didn't have to.
Yea, I know Rich, it isn't always like this. But Rich, even at age 93, climbed
the blanketty blank 40 meter tower twice trying to get the beam to rotate
(unsuccessfully as the prop pitch motor was not going to have any more of the
cold and just stopped doing what motors do)so it was stuck East. It was plenty
cold out there too -- the 2nd climb to 130 feet was in 18 degree F weather. And
it snowed 5 inches too.
There is hope for radio in Asia!! I was stunned by the number of B stations
and other Asian stations calling CQ on all the bands. Wow there are a lot of
stations on the air now. Instead of hearing all the W1s and W2s and W3s all
the time, I heard VC7M, RT0C, N6RO, K6NA, BY5CD, RA0FF, HS0ZAR, and many big JA
stations. Fascinating.
10 did not open much to EU. I worked about 15 EU stations on 10 and they were
right at the noise level. G3TXF woke me up Sunday morning with a neat QSO. I
could just tell Nigel was there calling me. There is no common daylight path
to EU on 10.
How does one have 22 zones and only 33 countries on 80? Operate from Alaska.
Fantastic condx are confirmed. I was stunned to hear 9K2HN with an S6 signal
calling stations on 80 -- but I could not get his attention. I heard A71BX
complete a Q with the very loud K6NA on 80 but I didn't get in there quickly
enough to poach the Q -- TU to NA for giving me a shot at it though. I heard
ES5RY long path on 80 for a long time and couldn't even get a "?" --
along with several other weaker EU stations. Again, AK's position on Earth
puts it in a place where other stations do not have receiving antennas aimed.
I felt if I had been running 5 or 10 KW I would have made it.
A71BX (K5GN) and I moved to a couple of bands including 40 for a great double
mult. Several stations kindly moved bands with me -- I love doing that.
The loudest and most startling signal all weekend was from N9RV on 10. Pat
simply set the 7700's Smeter needle all the way to the right. Or should I call
it "virtual Smeter needle"?
Station: IC7700 and Alpha 87A
IC781 and Alpha 91B
160 vertical
80 4 sq
40 4 sq and 3 el
20 5/4 stack
15 4/4/4
10 5/5/5
East Beverage
TU to KL7RA. Zone 1 record -- check.
Congrats to all for being on and making some amazing scores! TU to all the
DXpeditioners. Some of the most fun I have with CQWW is simply in admiring how
the world gets on the air on the same weekend and there is so much activity that
one cannot work it all (unless you are located on I-80 in a certain spot on the
border with Youngstown).
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