CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW
Call: WC1M
Operator(s): WC1M
Station: WC1M
Class: SOAB Classic HP
QTH: NH
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 8 6 8
80: 73 16 39
40: 525 32 95
20: 217 28 72
15: 613 27 85
10: 713 27 87
------------------------------
Total: 2149 136 386 Total Score = 3,723,984
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
That was fun! Congrats to all the category leaders, especially to those who set
new records. This was truly a memorable weekend.
As nearly everyone has noted, conditions were superb, especially on 40-10. I
can’t remember such a good combination of signals coming in from all over the
world with hardly a peep of band noise. As K5ZD noted, when all the bands were
open it was easy to find a place to run. Didn’t have a single frequency fight
and everyone seemed to be behaving pretty well in that respect.
This was my second attempt at Classic, and the first serious one. Last year I
was only able to put in about 16 hours. This time I managed to do the full 24,
despite having my daughter home from her first year at college for Thanksgiving
weekend and relatives visiting as well.
Looks like I did comparatively well on mults, especially in the zone
department. Finding BG9XD in zone 23 on 20 helped :-). My country count was
acceptable, but way down from the leaders on 160 and 80. Part of that was lack
of time spent on those bands and part was not having decent transmit antennas
for them. I made up for it somewhat with good country counts on 40-10 �"
especially 40. Where I really fell on my face was QSOs. Part of that was
spending too much time hunting for mults and part was mistakes I made at the
start of the contest.
Still trying to figure out a general strategy for operating hours. I don’t
think I’ve got it quite right. I started with the concept that I had to do
the morning runs on both days from 1000z-1600z to maximize QSOs. Also thought
the rate on 40 would be good at the beginning of the contest, then possibly
later if we got the EU sunrise opening. I would also need to spend some time on
80 and 160 to get mults. So I decided on a five hour window from 0000z-0500z on
the first night. Those three sessions would consume 19 hours, leaving only five
hours for other times. I decided that the best chunk would be from about
2100z-0200z on Saturday, hoping to catch some rate on 20 in the afternoon, then
move to 40 as soon as possible after it opened. As for mults, I decided to sweep
each band before starting to run and do some S&P if the rate fell off (which
it never did!)
That was the plan. What actually happened was that I spent zero time preparing
for the contest and sat down at the radio at 0009z on the first night. I had to
scramble to setup the station for contesting and lost some time resolving the
usual computer glitches. That’s usually something I do well in advance.
According to plan, I spent some time sweeping the band for mults. Too much time
�" 20 minutes later I had only 12 mults and they were all easy ones I
could have gotten by running. At 0032 I settled in on 7059 for a run. I worked
60 stations in 28 minutes, so I probably left more than 50 Qs on the table
that first hour. I ran another 33 stations in the first 17 minutes of the 0100z
hour, then inexplicably I left that good rate to S&P again. This time I
spent an hour and 15 minutes to grab 35 mults. There were some good catches
that I might not have gotten running on 40 �" e.g., V4/WJ2O, 7O2A, HI3A,
TC3P, WP3C, SU0ERA, A71BX, GD6IA, 9K2HN, and 8Q7DV. Had I run the entire first
hour that wouldn’t have been a bad investment of time, but when I realized I
had only 148 Qs after the first couple of hours I figured I had blown it.
I moved on 80 and swept the band for 15 minutes, snagging 22 mults. Not bad,
though they were all mults I could have gotten running. Then I ran 18 stations
in 10 minutes, which is pretty good rate for me on 80 with my wire antennas. At
that point it was 0405z and I had to get over to 160 because I had nothing there
and my plan didn’t include the hours 160 would be open on the second night. I
spent about 20 minutes on 160 to gain 12 of the 14 mults I ended up with on
that band. I wasn’t hearing much DX and wasn’t able to work about half of
the DX I did hear. So I went back to 80 and ran for another 10 minutes, with
similar rate �" about 100-110 per hour. I only picked up six new mults.
With conditions so good I figured there was probably an EU sunrise opening
going on 40, and I really needed that rate. So I jumped to 40 and worked 88
stations in 29 minutes. Spectacular rate. And here’s where I made another
mistake �" I left a rate of 180+/hr and went to bed!
Why? I had run over my planned operating for the first night by 30 minutes, and
wanted to be fresh for the morning runs from 1000z-1700z. Part of my thinking
was this: why bother doing Classic if you can’t get some sleep? To me, a big
reason for doing the overlay is to not kill myself over the weekend! I might
have to re-think that.
Reviewing my log, it looks like the low QSO total was a combination of leaving
high rate to chase mults and my S&P rate being way too slow �"
probably half what it should be. Consequently, I didn’t spend enough time
running. Also, I didn’t stick to the plan on Saturday afternoon. I chased
mults on 10, 15 and 20 from 2100z to 2340z, then started running 40 at high
rate. While I picked up 75 mults on the high bands, I should have moved to 40
much earlier.
In general, the rate was the best I’ve ever seen. The 1-hour rate meter was
over 150 during most of my runs, and often hit 200-220 on the 10-minute meter.
Best sustained 60 minute rate was 180/hr. On the first day I ran smoothly and
needed very few fills. But on the second day it seemed like I needed a lot more
fills. I think this was a combination of some huge zero-beat packet pileups and
being a little more fatigued. Still, my QSO totals on the second day were
higher on the second day because I S&Ped less �" I knew I was short
on Qs and tried to make it up by running. I probably got it backwards and
should have run more the first day and S&Ped more the second day. It's a
work in progress.
See you in the next one!
Antennas:
160M - trapped vee @90'
80M - delta loop @75, trapped vee @90'
40M - Cal-Av 2D-40A @110', 4-square
20M - 4/4/4 SteppIRs @96'/64'/34' on TICs, C3E @50', 4-el @72'
15M - 4/4/4 SteppIRs @96'/64'/34' on TICs, C3E @50', 5-el @50'
10M - 4/4/4 SteppIRs @96'/64'/34' on TICs, C3E @50'. 6-el @115'
Tower#1: Force 12 EF-610, Cal-AV 2D-40A, 4-el SteppIRs, 160/80 trapped vee
770-MDP: Force-12 EF-420
AB-577 #1: Force-12 EF-515
AB-577 #2: Force-12 C3E
Delta loop hung from a tree
dual 580' beverage aimed 20/220 degrees
Equipment:
Elecraft K3 + Alpha 87A, Elecraft K3 + LP-PAN + Acom 2000A, Writelog,
LP-BRIDGE, PowerSDR-IF, YCCC SO2R Box, homebrew Windows antenna
switching/tuning software ("AntennaMaster"), iPad running iDisplay
for touch-screen "button box", K1XM MOAS II USB Switch, TopTen and
KK1L SO2R switches, Green Heron and Hy-Gain rotor controllers, microHam Stack
Switch and StackMax
QSO/ZN+DX by hour and band
Hour 160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total Cumm
OffTime
D1-0000Z --+-- --+-- 69/35 --+-- --+-- --+-- 69/35 69/35
D1-0100Z - - 61/29 - - - 61/29 130/64
D1-0200Z - - 18/14 - - - 18/14 148/78
1
D1-0300Z - 27/25 - - - - 27/25 175/103
60
D1-0400Z 7/12 29/8 3/0 - - - 39/20 214/123
D1-0500Z - - 88/2 - - - 88/2 302/125
29
D1-0600Z - - - - - - 0/0 302/125
60
D1-0700Z - - - - - - 0/0 302/125
60
D1-0800Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 0/0 302/125
60
D1-0900Z - - - - - - 0/0 302/125
60
D1-1000Z 1/2 5/9 8/11 - - - 14/22 316/147
14
D1-1100Z - 3/3 3/2 57/30 16/16 - 79/51 395/198
D1-1200Z - - - - 143/27 4/6 147/33 542/231
D1-1300Z - - - - 10/14 118/27 128/41 670/272
D1-1400Z - - - - - 119/17 119/17 789/289
D1-1500Z - - - - - 32/25 32/25 821/314
D1-1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 85/15 8/1 93/16 914/330
D1-1700Z - - - - 50/4 48/3 98/7 1012/337
17
D1-1800Z - - - - - - 0/0 1012/337
60
D1-1900Z - - - - - - 0/0 1012/337
60
D1-2000Z - - - - - - 0/0 1012/337
60
D1-2100Z - - - - 5/8 18/27 23/35 1035/372
3
D1-2200Z - - - 12/20 20/15 - 32/35 1067/407
D1-2300Z - - 44/3 18/24 - - 62/27 1129/434
D2-0000Z --+-- --+-- 148/9 --+-- --+-- --+-- 148/9 1277/443
D2-0100Z - 5/5 34/9 - - - 39/14 1316/457
D2-0200Z - 4/5 34/0 - - - 38/5 1354/462
24
D2-0300Z - - - - - - 0/0 1354/462
60
D2-0400Z - - - - - - 0/0 1354/462
60
D2-0500Z - - - - - - 0/0 1354/462
60
D2-0600Z - - - - - - 0/0 1354/462
60
D2-0700Z - - - - - - 0/0 1354/462
60
D2-0800Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 0/0 1354/462
60
D2-0900Z - - - - - - 0/0 1354/462
60
D2-1000Z - - 15/13 1/1 - - 16/14 1370/476
21
D2-1100Z - - - 116/17 - - 116/17 1486/493
D2-1200Z - - - 6/0 160/4 - 166/4 1652/497
D2-1300Z - - - - 24/0 146/6 170/6 1822/503
D2-1400Z - - - - - 170/1 170/1 1992/504
D2-1500Z - - - 7/8 2/2 50/1 59/11 2051/515
D2-1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 98/7 --+-- 98/7 2149/522
Total: 8/14 73/55 525/127 217/100 613/112 713/114
160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total %
AS 0 1 33 15 37 8 94 4.4
EU 2 54 425 171 540 659 1851 86.1
NA 4 12 44 11 20 24 115 5.4
AF 1 2 7 8 7 6 31 1.4
SA 1 3 13 9 6 11 43 2.0
OC 0 1 3 3 3 5 15 0.7
73, Dick WC1M
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
______________________________________________
3830 mailing list
3830@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/3830
|