CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW
Call: K5WA
Operator(s): K5WA
Station: K5WA
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: Texas
Operating Time (hrs): 23
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 1103 State/Prov = 58 Countries = 65 Total Score = 528,777
Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club
Comments:
I never thought I'd see conditions as good as 2009's contest but the first day
of this one brought VERY quiet conditions. That is NOT normal for south Texas.
We usually have thunderstorm QRN messing up rates and blowing accuracy. I felt
like I had moved to PEI as quiet as it was the first night and I logged almost
800 Qs, 58 State/Prov and 58 countries. I was a happy camper. Reality set in
though about the end of the first night's EU sunrise when storms moved closer.
So much for the quiet. The second night just kind of slogged on until about an
hour before G sunrise when, for the first time in my life, I had 45 minutes of
getting to the second tier of EU stations. The storm QRN was terrible but 10
point contacts were worth the agony I inflected on my poor EU contacts who were
wondering why the heck this Texas guy can't copy their calls. It was stinkin'
noisy down here but my score was jumping up too fast to give up. This far
exceeds the number of EU stations I've ever worked on 160 and is almost double
my score the last time I entered in 2016 (I think).
Highlights were 4X2M and several other good mults calling me while I was CQing.
All the work I did on my beverages really didn't pay off because the 4SQR was
still better about 80% of the time. I don't know why the 4SQR is so quiet but
I'm sure glad it is. I used the 4SQR's OMNI position most of the time until I
needed to concentrate in a particular direction.
On the downside, there sure were several crummy, clicky signals in this one. I
don't know if they like to have "sharp elbows" like that you keep
everybody away from their frequency but it sure gets old. I'm also seeing more
and more folks that just can't copy a simple request such as "call?".
They just leave or send their state again. Oh well, glad they are still trying
to get into a contest.
I quit early because that last minute EU run was what I want to remember rather
than the last 6 hours of 2 point barrel scraping. I've got a date with my wife
Sunday evening anyway and need to be awake for that.
160 is still my favorite band and I'm glad our south Texas propagation fog
lifted for us even for a short glimpse of what the east coast boys take a
"normal".
Thanks for the Qs as always!
73,
Bob K5WA
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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