ARRL DX Contest, SSB - 2020
Call: W6YX
Operator(s): N7MH
Station: W6YX
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: Stanford
Operating Time (hrs): 39
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 12 10
80: 86 34
40: 585 67
20: 606 96
15: 99 36
10: 12 4
-------------------
Total: 1400 247 Total Score = 1,037,400
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
QSO counts exclude the 26 zero-point QSOs I logged.
Shared the station for the first few hours with John, W6LD, who was both trying
to assess the new P40L/P49Y antennas by listening to P40A's low power operation
and also checking out some repairs to the W6YX low band and Beverage antennas.
John started out with the rotatable 20m Yagi so I spent the first 50 minutes
S&P for Caribbean and South and Central America on a fixed 20m Yagi beaming
that direction. John moved to 40 and I began running on 20 toward JA. 20 began
to slow early in the 0200 hour and I tried 80 and then 160 but it was nearly
impossible breaking through pileups on 80 and I didn't hear much on 160 except
the K3LR and W3LPL beacons.
At 0300 I moved to 40 and worked quite a few zone 15 stations but only EA, CT
and LX in zone 14. John left at 0400 and I was able to get my second K3 and
Alpha 9500 hooked up to enable SO2R. My SO2R setup is not ideal for SSB as I
can't use the automatic headphone latch function so I'm always listening to two
radios unless I manually flip the headphone switch on the SO2R box.
I took a 2-hour sleep break at 1000 the first day and then 7 hours beginning at
0300 on day 2. I probably missed some good multipliers on 160 and 80 during the
longer break but I was fading and hadn't made a QSO for 20 minutes while trying
to break pileups on 80.
I periodically checked 160 but didn't hear any DX other than the few stations I
worked. I think I was just there at the wrong times. VR2XAN had suggested trying
160 "later" but with no specified time I checked just around my
sunrise both days and didn't find him.
80 was a struggle trying to work into Europe. A few EU made it into the log but
several others couldn't hear me. Most of the western hemisphere stations I heard
were eventually worked. OA4SS was easy copy but had high noise at his city
location and didn't hear me. I had a VK3 call me whose full call I just could
not pull out despite numerous tries listening to Beverages close to his
direction.
I missed some easy European mults on 40, mostly in zone 14, but including UA.
Did not hear any F stations and the only G heard was a loud M6T who did not hear
me. Worked ZS and a strong OZ7BQ long path on Sunday morning but didn't hear any
other LP EU. I hadn't worked ZF or TO5A on 40 so spent the final half hour on 40
and finally worked both.
Everyone was crowded onto 20 during our morning. I tried CQing to Europe on
Saturday but had no callers during the few times I found a clear (to me)
frequency. Sunday I had a couple brief runs of 4 and 9 Qs but gave up after 5
minutes with no callers. On Sunday afternoon I lucked into finding a few new
mults before they were spotted but also spent a lot of time in big pileups
trying to break through.
Apparently I didn't miss anything on 15 on the first evening. Never heard any EU
or Africa stations. Kept monitoring for JAs and finally logged JA3YBK at 2300,
an hour before the contest ended. I was CQing toward JA on 20 so I tried moving
other JAs to 15 unsuccessfully for the next half hour before I headed to 40 for
the final half hour.
I checked 10 every so often both days and managed to catch an opening that was
mostly LU to begin with plus HC, CE, and later mostly PY between 1800 and 2000
on Saturday. Nothing seen on the panadapter on Sunday.
73,
-Mike, N7MH
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