CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB
Call: N9TF
Operator(s): N9TF
Station: N9TF
Class: SO(A)AB LP
QTH: IL
Operating Time (hrs): 14
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 1 1 1
80: 6 4 3
40: 11 5 11
20: 137 21 61
15: 66 14 40
10: 20 6 11
------------------------------
Total: 241 51 127 Total Score = 120,150
Club: Society of Midwest Contesters
Comments:
The lack of sunspots and a low SFI, made conditions for a low power, low hanging
small antenna station quite the challenge! At times I thought I was in a street
fight to claim a Q! 40 and 80 Friday night had lots of good signals, but very
few heard my puny signal. Before I went to 40, I hoped to be able to at least
work all four of the HI stations running on 20m. Only one logged was KH7XS. The
other three CQed in may face multiple times before I gave up and went to 40. I
was treated to the CQ in face there as well. I hit the off switch at 1AM local
time out of frustration I was hopeful for good things to happen on 20m in the
morning. I was up and in the chair at 1240UTC and didn't log my first Q on 20
until 1255UTC! The first half dozen or so EU DX I called either CQed in my face
or were working stations stronger than me. I had a strong urge to call it quits
right then and there, but slapped myself in the face a few times and carried on!
As the morning wore on, signals got stronger, and it was a little easier to work
some stations. Many took multiple, multiple calls to get acknowledged, and then
the repeats would begin. (thanks for all who had patience to get it correct) I
had to walk away from the rig a few times, as I realized I would start yelling
into the mic, which didn't help!
>From after noon on Saturday, I was in and out of the shack due to having to
monitor the contractors working on building our paver patio. I kept watching the
spots and would go up to 15 and 10 now and then to look for signals. Was a nice
surprise to see 10 open for a while and also 15. EU was much easier to work on
15 and Central and SA was actually pretty easy on 10 even though the signals
were not real strong.
I was hoping for some good conditions on 40 and 80 after dinner Saturday night
to add to the score, but YIKES! Hit 40 at 0103UTC and wondered if something
happened to the feed line going to the dipole. Signals were WAaaaay down on both
40 and 80. I did work ZF1A and 8P5A on 40. Tried a couple EU stations but no go.
Went to 80, worked 8P5A there and noticed signals were way down there too. Went
to 160, and worked VA2WA. By now 2.5 hours had passed and I had 4 Qs!!! pulled
the plug at 0323UTC and went to bed.
Decided to sleep in a little later Sunday morning and catch 20m a bit later in
the morning when propagation would be more in my favor. Got up at 13:45UTC and
logged the first Q at 14:04 after only about a minute of firing things up.
Things were a little easier to western EU and Africa, but now I was hearing
stations loud from Ukraine Estonia and EU Russia I did not hear Saturday
morning. They were loud and I thought it should be easy...Fat chance! I finally
did work all the new ones I heard, but spent waaaaay to much time calling. The
only new DX and new zone that I heard and could not get through was J42L. Spent
25 minutes the first time trying. He was 20 over S9. I finally broke away in
defeat to work more three pointers, going back to his frequency multiple time
after to try again...three and out, move on!
Going into the CQWW DX contests I always set a goal to work DXCC. Came up 29
short this time around. Not bad though considering the below par conditions at
the bottom of the sun spot cycle. Was hoping to be able to break over 200 Qs and
100K points before I would have to QRT in the early afternoon Sunday. Was able
to just manage those to milestones.
Sure am looking forward to the beginning of the next cycle!
73 Gene, N9TF
Rig, K3S 100 watts to 2 element triband at 37', 40/80 100 foot shortened loaded
dipole at 35', 67' 160m shortened loaded half sloper at apex of 35.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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