CQWW WPX Contest, SSB
Call: KQ2M
Operator(s): KQ2M
Station: KQ2M
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: CT
Operating Time (hrs): 30.5
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160: 0
80: 225
40: 607
20: 1962
15: 19
10: 0
------------
Total: 2813 Prefixes = 1055 Total Score = 8,115,060
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
2 1/2 weeks before WPXSSB I had major abdominal surgery to correct a severe,
rapidly accelerating medical problem. It also confirmed two other longstanding
severe health problems that will require two additional major surgeries; one of
which has significant risk. I had mixed feelings about all of this news but my
immediate concern was how much would I be able to operate in the WPXSSB, my
favorite contest?
The financial markets had been in meltdown mode the week before the contest with
some of the most insane intraday volatility that I have ever seen and the huge
alternative daily reversals that week left me completely mentally and physically
exhausted by Friday afternoon. Now I had just three hours to regroup, suck it up
and get ready to operate a phone contest for an entire weekend! HA!
At 0000z, I was in such intense pain that the anti-inflammatories and pain
killers were not giving me any relief, and together with the persistent cardiac
arrhythmias which impacted my breathing, made it almost impossible to operate.
Had this been any contest other than WPXSSB, I would not have even bothered.
But I HAD to get on, and not having the energy to face 40 SSB, I pointed my top
20 yagi
West and ran for 1 1/2 hours on 20. I had strength for one radio, run only with
no tuning.
Cndx were poor, qrn was high and signals were weak. Much to my surprise,
occasionally a JA would call in and as I would turn the antenna closer to NW -
the JA station would get louder and then I would leave it there and call CQ
contest thinking that MAYBE I might run a few JA's? NOPE! After 5 minutes I
would turn the beam back to the West and run more W and VE stations with an
occasional
SA/Caribbean station calling in. Then another JA station would call and I would
turn the beam NW again and NOTHING. After the 3rd time this happened I stopped
moving my antenna NW. I had 147 qsos in the 00Z hour followed by another 112 in
the 01z hour in which I began on 20 and ended on 80. For some reason my
ACOM2000A was not happy with the top 20 and kept going to standby which I would
not notice for a few minutes - that 10 db drop in signal strength was enough to
make the callers stop calling. Whenever the rate dropped I would look at the
RCU and sure enough, it would be on standby! I probably spent 30 minutes
operating barefoot! ZL4AS called in at 0101z but the band quickly died and by
0122z I was on 80. I found an excellent frequency and was hearing loud EU
stations but not many were calling in. They were probably on 40. I was hearing
well and being heard well with notable callers CN3A at 0158z, 9K2HN and A71AM at
0206z. I was in such horrible pain by now that I could barely speak and I had to
qrt at 0226z.
Unfortunately the pain in my chest was so severe that the medicines were not
helping me and I could not sleep. I lay in bed propped up by several pillows and
just tried to rest. When the alarm went off at 10z - 6 AM - I got up prepared
the food and meds and hoped that I could somehow get through the day. This was
not going to be fun - I was hoping that I could get a decent enough run going to
distract me from the pain.
I started my run at 1039z but it was really a crawl. Very poor cndx, weak
signals and incredibly fast qsb. I was only working about one station per
minute and not being heard well in Europe until 1115z, well after sunrise.
Along the way, IK2YCW moved in on top of me and would not leave. He was clearly
hearing me but did not care that I was there. Eventually he went away and was
replaced by other EU stations clobbering me. With 0 sunspots, A=16, K=2 and a
Bz of Negative -3.1 (Earth's geomagnetic field), cndx were terrible, even for
the bottom of the cycle. 15 was dead - there was nothing to do but slug it
out.
At 1120z I had a pileup and stations got louder. Very few Russians though which
meant that the polar path was poor. The 11z hour ended with a disappointing 124
qsos and it was a struggle for every one of them! 12z started better with the
band opening more broadly. CN8VO called in at 1206z along with RM8L and UA9BA
at 1215z and 1220z. Willy, UA9BA was surprisingly loud even though cndx were
poor.
CN2AA called in at 1225z follwed by RO9A at 1236z and 9H6A and RK9AX at 1244z
ending a 124 qso 12z hour. LN1K began the 13z hour by repeatedly cqing on top
of me and refusing to move. Thankfully cndx continued to improve and by now I
was being heard better in Europe. RU9LA called at 1302z along with quite a few
EU Russians and then SV9RGI at 1312z. By now Russians were making up 3 out of 10
qsos and I had hopes for a good hour - which ended with 160 qsos. AHA! The Bz
went positive! at 3.3 and the Auroral oval dropped to 1 - its lowest number - No
wonder the band improved! But that did not last long. The 14z hour began with a
massive fade and almost continual freq. fights as stations would just plop down
and call cq immediately - completely ignoring my callers and me and then
refusing to move even though they clearly heard me! Between the constant qrm,
rapid and dramatic qsb, intermod from nearby stations and then some idiot
ragchewers both US and South American, 20 was just a snakepit. I struggled for
118 qsos in the 14z hour and 15z and 16z hours were 142 and 122 qsos
respectively. What I noticed was that we would get these little bursts of band
opening where signals would get stronger for 5 - 10 minutes and then dip
dramatically and then rally back up and fade dramatically again. Each time we
would get one of these rallies, a different area of Europe would be featured -
so a few Russians and then fade and then a few LA
and SM stations and then a fade and then a few S5 and SP stations and then a
fade and then DL and I and so on. With few exceptions, the top 5L antenna at
130' alone was best for EU. Rarely was any stacking combination better and if
it was, it was only for a few minutes. This made it difficult to split antennas
and work in different directions since EU signals were already weak and stacking
antennas would make them 1 - 2 s-units weaker and my run would disappear.
Z61DX was a welcome caller at 1603z. It was Europe and US for the next few
hours with 122 qsos in the 16z hour and 130 in the 17z hour. Occsionally a
small burst of loud Russian or LA or OH stations would cal in but then they
would disappear again. At 1758z VY0ERC called in followed by a few more
Russians but then a combination of band noise, qsb and K3ZU calling cq
repeatedly on me really hurt the rate. K3ZU seemed to make a habit of
alternating calling cq on top of me and then calling cq on top of another
station about 1.5 khz down. Then he would cq on me again and then go back and
harass the station below me. What a lid!
At 1830z the band opened better again and CN4P and 5B4AAB called in at 1840z
followed by a few more Russians and then a LOUD 4L2M at 1846z, but only 75 qso's
went into the log in the 18z hour. Since 15 was still pretty much dead, I
stayed on 20 with the idea that this weekend was really a 20 M single band
contest with occasional forays to other bands. The 19z hour started with TA4PR
and KQ2R -
love that prefix - HI! 5Z4/LZ4NM was loud at 1916z and ZL1T was even louder via
longpath at 1952z. CN8MAA and P33W called in at 1958z ending an 80 hour.
By now I was just barely hanging on. My heart would not beat properly and I was
feeling like I had been hit by a car. Every part of my body hurt badly. I kept
going for as long as I could. Every so often signals would improve briefly and
then fade rapidly again. I believe that most of Saturday 20 meters was just at
the MUF and the little " pops " that we got in signal strength were
when the MUF
briefly rose above 14 mhz before falling again - which is when the signals would
drop right out. Along the way, the Bz readings would fluctuate from positive to
negative and back again - which when you have ZERO sunspots is enough make the
band opening disappear. At 2051z TF8KY called followed by TA2RG at 2054z ending
a 99 hour. Then the South American ragchewers returned and stayed for about 45
minutes even though I was nowhere near the band edge. They got annoyed when I
turned the top antenna at them - apparently the fact that I was calling cq
contest on MY freq. was irritating to them - even though I had been there for
the previous 9 hours.
The propagation became more interesting in the 21z hour with VK2AU calling in
longpath at 2119z and JF9JTS at 2120z along with some EU and US stations. I
wanted to stay on 20 but I had not been on 40 yet and needed to get there early
for the 6 pointers. The choices were go to 40 early and hopefully find a run
freq. or stay on 20 and hope for a JA run (not likely) and then not have a run
freq. on
40? I went to 40 at 2142z. The EU stations were VERY LOUD and I had an
immediate pileup! In fact the pileup was so big and the stations were so loud
that I it was extremely difficult to copy anything in the qrm, qrn and wildly
fast qsb. I finished the 21z hour with 79 qso's but the run was AWESOME in the
22z hour with 130 q's and I had my best rate of the contest with 264.7 last 10!
But the
EU signals were fading rapidly and by 0030z they were almost completely gone! I
continued to run with mostly US with occasional Carib/SA callers like V31VP,
KV4TH, 8P1W, CO1IB and 9Y4VG. I had finished the 23z hour with 92 qso's and
then had 124 in the 00z hour and another 85 in the 01z hour. I took a one hour
break from 0146z to 0247z and tried running on 80 with very limited success. I
went qrt again at 0306z and came back to 80 at 0425z but signals were weak and
the band was very noisy. I was not being heard well in EU and I was not copying
them well either. I think that a lot of stations were either taking off time,
were on 20 or had gone qrt for the contest. At 0531z I went qrt too.
I had hoped that Sunday would be better for EU on 20. But I was WRONG!
I got up at 1115z and 20 was DEAD! I went to 40 and called cq and had a fun run
of US, VE and VK stations! VK5FTCT, VK5GR, VK4NH and ZM3T all called in
followed by CM8MNM and T42CT. By now 20 was beginning to open and at 1148z I
began to run, slowly. At 1158z OK8UN said I had a BIG signal but there were not
many callers. At 12z ( 8 AM local), the band opened better but about 1 1/2
hours late!
ES9C was VERY LOUD at 1220z and much louder than the other EU stations. I hoped
that this was a good sign that the polar path would be better today. RZ9AD
called at 1235z along with a few other Russians but then there was a BIG fadeout
at 1245z after HC1DX called. NOTHING for 4 minutes! The band noise came up and
signals disappeared! Must have been an SID. Then at 1249z, RA6CA called with a
S9 + 20 signal! and then nothing else except for loud band noise! The 12z hour
was a disappointing 86 qsos. 13z was a little better at first with KP3A calling
in at 1312z and 9K2HN at 1324z but then another big fade before R9PA at 1355z
ending a disapping 13z hour with only 54 qsos. In the poor 14z hour, RC8I was
the only interesting caller at 1413z as cndx got even worse and EU dropped out
for a few
minutes at a time. It did not help when RW3XZ decided to move in and try to run
EU on top of me. He finally left after 20 minutes. Surely the 15z hour had to
be better? Well, at 1505z 8T8S called in and then ZF2ZF at 1539z, but cndx were
poor, signals weak and qsb severe and yet another freq, interloper, this time
MX0SNB. The 15z and 16z hours had only 69 and 48 qsos with A71AE the highlight
at
1616z. I continued to press the F1 key because at this point that was all that
I could do. I was far too weak and in too much pain to tune around or to call
cq with any energy. The band noise increased and now the Auroral Oval was back
up to 3 - just enough to shut down the polar path to EU. The run now consisted
of 2 - 5 minute band openings and then a fade and then another brief band
opening and
then another fade. At 1720z TK5MH called in but then at 1731z I had to leave 20.
I had nothing left. Like a boxer in a "clench", I was just trying to
let time pass and preserve energy and hope that my body would respond and
recover if I gave it some low energy operating "rest" time.
So it was either qsy to 15 - essentially a dead band - or qrt. I chose to
continue in the chair and turn the top 15 South and call cq and see if anything
called me. After 20 minutes only a few SA stations and some super weak US had
called in. I took at 10 min break went to 20 and turned the top antenna West and
then had a low-key ran for about 30 min. Now, feeling a tiny bit better, I went
lower in the band and tried to run EU again. At 1902z SV9CVY called in followed
by TR8JCV at 1906z and FR4QT at 1908z and TA1ED at 1911z. That was FUN! Cndx
improved a bit and, interestingly enough, cndx improved then the noise went away
and when the band noise came back the band dropped out again! The run continued
with US and EU at a modest pace with ZS6BAF, TK4RB and 5V7SM calling in between
1949z - 1958z ending a 65 hour at 19z. 20 crashed again in the 20z hour and I
was too tired to care.
At 2144z I called cq on 40 and had a brief run of EU with C37AC calling in at
2157z followed by HZ100Z at 2222z and SZ1A, CN8VA and C4A at 2240z - 2244z with
a nice EU pileup ending the 22z hour with 74 qsos, but then the MUF cratered and
by 23z the EU stations were gone! I tried to run on 80 in the 23z hour with a
few EU callers but the noise was too high and the signals too weak. I went back
to
20 at 2322z and ran some West coast and SA stations including CE2SV and CE2CT at
2326z, 3G3PR at 2339z, OA4SS at 2346z and CP6UA at 2351z ending with a 64 hour.
At the end, operating ONE radio NON-assisted all weekend, I had:
2,813 qso's 1,055 Mult = 8,115,060 in 30.5 hours
I knew it would take a super-human effort on my part to overcome the intense
pain, exhaustion and heart arrhythmias to operate competitively just 2 1/2 weeks
post major surgery. I almost pulled it off but it was too much for me even
though I literally pushed myself to the limit. It was very frustrating to know
how close I was but that I was not strong enough to be able to operate the full
time. Those 5.5 hours that I could not operate made a difference and no 40 on
Friday night was a killer. And no tuning or mult hunting or operating on 10 or
160 also made a big difference.
With excellent competition in the SOABHP category from AC1U and others, you have
to be able to operate the full time and make the maximum effort with two radios
all weekend in order to get to the top, and that is as it should be.
All things considered I was pleased with my effort. I really did not know if I
was even going to be able to sit at the radio this weekend, much less make 2800+
q's at the bottom of the cycle with poor cndx with a severely compromised body.
I have two more major surgeries coming up - that will likely take out the Fall
contest season for me this year. Hopefully 2019 will be a healthier year for
me!
Congratulations to AC1U, 8P5A (W2SC) for their winning scores and to everyone
else who stuck it out for the full 36 hours this weekend - you really earned it!
Tnx for the qsos and the mults!
73
Bob KQ2M
kq2m@kq2m.com
www.rlsfinancialgroup.com
BREAKDOWN QSO/mults KQ2M CQ WORLD WIDE PREFIX CONTEST Single Operator
HOUR 160 80 40 20 15 10 HR TOT CUM TOT
0 ..... ..... ..... 147/89 ..... ..... 147/89 147/89
1 . 76/52 . 36/12 . . 112/64 259/153
2 . 37/30 . . . . 37/30 296/183
3 . . . . . . . 296/183
4 . . . . . . . 296/183
5 . . . . . . . 296/183
6 . . . . . . . 296/183
7 . . . . . . . 296/183
8 ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... 296/183
9 . . . . . . . 296/183
10 . . . 27/16 . . 27/16 323/199
11 . . . 124/97 . . 124/97 447/296
12 . . . 119/77 . . 119/77 566/373
13 . . . 160/89 . . 160/89 726/462
14 . . . 118/61 . . 118/61 844/523
15 . . . 142/55 . . 142/55 986/578
16 ..... ..... ..... 122/43 ..... ..... 122/43 1108/621
17 . . . 130/45 . . 130/45 1238/666
18 . . . 75/35 . . 75/35 1313/701
19 . . . 80/24 . . 80/24 1393/725
20 . . . 99/27 . . 99/27 1492/752
21 . . 30/6 49/16 . . 79/22 1571/774
22 . . 130/25 . . . 130/25 1701/799
23 . . 92/18 . . . 92/18 1793/817
0 ..... ..... 124/34 ..... ..... ..... 124/34 1917/851
1 . . 85/21 . . . 85/21 2002/872
2 . 18/7 . . . . 18/7 2020/879
3 . 4/0 . . . . 4/0 2024/879
4 . 59/11 . . . . 59/11 2083/890
5 . 24/8 2/1 . . . 26/9 2109/899
6 . . . . . . . 2109/899
7 . . . . . . . 2109/899
8 ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... 2109/899
9 . . . . . . . 2109/899
10 . . . . . . . 2109/899
11 . . 38/9 12/2 . . 50/11 2159/910
12 . . . 86/24 . . 86/24 2245/934
13 . . . 54/9 . . 54/9 2299/943
14 . . . 48/16 . . 48/16 2347/959
15 . . . 69/22 . . 69/22 2416/981
16 ..... ..... ..... 48/12 2/1 ..... 50/13 2466/994
17 . . . 22/3 17/3 . 39/6 2505/1000
18 . . . 65/6 . . 65/6 2570/1006
19 . . . 52/16 . . 52/162622/1022
20 . . . 25/4 . . 25/4 2647/1026
21 . . 28/5 . . . 28/5 2675/1031
22 . . 74/6 . . . 74/6 2749/1037
23 . 7/0 4/0 53/15 . . 64/152813/1052
DAY1 ..... 113/82 252/49 1428/686 ..... ..... ..... 1793/817
DAY2 . 112/26 355/76 534/129 19/4 . . 1020/235
TOT . 225/108 607/125 1962/815 19/4 . . 2813/1052
Continent Statistics
KQ2M CQ WORLD WIDE PREFIX CONTEST Single Operator 25 Mar 2018 2359z
160 80 40 20 15 10 ALL percent
North America SSB 0 136 332 564 12 0 1044 36.5
South America SSB 0 4 3 36 7 0 50 1.7
Europe SSB 0 79 265 1343 0 0 1687 58.9
Asia SSB 0 2 4 37 0 0 43 1.5
Africa SSB 0 4 7 19 0 0 30 1.0
Oceania SSB 0 1 4 4 0 0 9 0.3
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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