CQWW WPX Contest, CW - 2020
Call: NJ6G
Operator(s): N7MH
Station: W6YX
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: Stanford
Operating Time (hrs): 36
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160:
80: 193
40: 748
20: 1424
15: 416
10: 19
------------
Total: 2800 Prefixes = 923 Total Score = 5,866,588
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
After setting everything up on Thursday night I was ready to go at the start of
the contest but as soon as I tried 15m I wasn't getting any power out of the
Alpha 86. So I spent 10 minutes CQing on 20 when I stopped to discover that I
hadn't reset the Tune/Load on the Alpha 86 for 15 after verifying settings for
all antennas the previous evening. Easily fixed, but I lost my run frequency on
20 so scrambled to find an opening on the crowded band while getting started on
15. Eventually had 2BSIQ going and made 106 Qs in the first hour. No major
equipment problems after that.
I was determined to take advantage of the 6-point Qs on 40 and 80 as much as
possible since I had to sleep for 2 hours last year during the first night's
Asia opening and missed most of the second night's opening by oversleeping. This
year I was falling asleep at the radio and took just a 1 hour break at 0900. I
slept again for an hour and a half at 1700 when 15 and 10 were not producing and
same-band SO2R on 20 was slow.
My plan for the second night was to take a break mid-evening and then return
just as 40 opened to Asia. This would be a 4 hour break, 0400 to 0800. When the
alarm went off at 0730 I thought I'd stay in bed for a minute or two to clear my
head. Just like last year I slept for another 3 hours and missed some of the
prime point-producing hours.
Oversleeping was somewhat of a mixed blessing as I had considered taking another
sleep break mid-morning on Sunday which was when 15 opened up to Europe and a
big chunk of the US and Canada. Glad I didn't miss that opening as I was able to
work several EU mults that couldn't hear me on 20.
The rate on 20 dropped when 15 opened so I moved that K3 to 10. There were
several signals on the band. After working a few US stations I stumbled onto and
worked OK7O. I then heard several other EU stations (S55T, YU7EE and LX20I that
I remember) but none of them could hear me. The second built-in pre-amp in the
K3S really helps reception on 10 but the 600 feet of feedline to our only
rotatable 10m monoband Yagi likely knocks our transmitted signal down a lot. I
ran out of callers on 10 and ended up on 15 and 20 for the rest of my
operating.
I had two more hours of off-time and decided to operate with no breaks until my
36 hours were up since the 2200 and 2300 hours hadn't been great on Saturday.
Apparently I missed the best EU opening on 20 that happened during those hours.
While S&P I frequently had to correct those who miscopied NJ6G as N1BG or
N1DG. As suggested in an earlier post by a 4-land station I added extra dits to
the 6 when repeating the callsign to emphasize the mistake. Thanks to Dennis,
NJ6G, for use of the callsign.
73,
-Mike, N7MH
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