ARRL DX Contest, CW - 2022
Call: P44W
Operator(s): W2GD
Station: P40L/P49Y
Class: SOAB LP
QTH: Aruba
Operating Time (hrs): 41
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 255 41
80: 628 58
40: 1115 59
20: 1273 59
15: 1407 60
10: 1337 59
-------------------
Total: 6015 336 Total Score = 6,057,072
Club: Frankford Radio Club
Comments:
Station - John P40L/W6LD and Andy P49Y/AE6Y offered me yet another opportunity
to pilot their terrific station this week. I hope the world situation improves
soon so they'll again enjoy their gem on Aruba.
Note: All of the P40L/P49Y towers are on a small 100 x 100 foot lot:
Rohn 45 tower (66’): Single boom 2-element shortened 40m interlaced with
4-element 20m (68’) (JK2040, long-boom version); 80m Inverted-V (65’); 160m
Double-L center-fed vertical dipole (65’) SteppIR 2-element (35')
North Rohn 25 tower (56’): Single boom 5-element 15 interlaced with 6-element
10 (58’) (JK1015 configured for dual feed)
South Rohn 25 tower (45.5’): Tri -bander (JK Mid-tri) - Backup not used.
Beverages: 4 controlled by K9AY switchbox: West-US (800’), East US (500’),
EU (800’)and East-West (AF and OC) (350’)
Rig: Elecraft K3/P3 - 100 watts
Logging software: Win-test 4.40
SOME COMMENTS:
Another great week on Aruba - this never gets old especially during the winter
months. The island is 'normalizing' with less restrictive travel requirements
and nearly full relaxation of Covid rules.
Didn't miss the physical aspects of setting up my own station for this contest.
All I had to do at P40L/P49Y was sit down and point the beams at 320 degrees
(US/VE). Love simplicity.
No station preparations were required since I last visited here for CQWW CW last
November. DL5MM (P40AA) used the station during the CQ160 CW just a few weeks
ago. It was fun to enjoy some casual operating - all the time marveling how
having more sunspots had changed the high band landscape.
Carefully watched what was happening on 160 and 10 meters before the contest -
key bands for my low power entry to come. Spent some time over at P40W - doing
long delayed beverage maintenance and painted a tower on Friday morning. The
salt laden air never takes a vacation.
Conditions early in the week were exceptional - it was a shame they started to
decline mid-week with a disturbance predicted on Sunday. Unfortunately the
prediction proved accurate when things started downhill late Saturday. Notably,
160 meters were never very good all week with high absorption observed at this
latitude.
K2LE and W1VE once again decided to cancel their trip to do a serious LP M/S at
P49V leaving me the sole serious P40 operation as happened before last year's
ARRL DX CW.
I set operating goals based upon the 2021 P44W SOABHP(U)log, factoring in being
13 dB weaker running low power and not having the cluster to pick off multiplier
targets. The wildcard in the plan was propagation on 160 and 10 meters. I
established stretch goals of 6100 contacts and 340 multipliers (compared to 6700
and 336 operating results running HP in 2021). I almost got there. The plan was
conceived to strongly challenge the SOABLP record set in 2004 by K9PG @ WP3R -
something I'd failed to accomplish twice before.
The P44W rate sheet is provided at the bottom of this narrative. With improved
conditions I made the decision to start on 20 meters for the first time in many
years - which fortunately proved successful.
Over the course of the weekend there were 6 hours over 200/hr, 12 hours between
150 and 200, and 13 hours between 100 and 149 - low power. After every QSY
pileups began almost instantaneously. Manual call outs were still very obvious.
There didn't seem to be that much difference between high and low power except
perhaps the depth of the pileups.
Conditions on 40 and 80 were exceptional - strong signals and no QRN at all. But
as mentioned earlier poor conditions on 160 meters continued - very absorbed and
a big disappointment. Without the aid of the cluster it was impossible to take
advantage of spotlight 160 openings as they occurred. Moving stations from 40 or
80 to 160 was successful less than 30% of the time.
Sleep management is an important aspect of the plan since lack of rest impairs
efficiency (at 72, this is a real factor). On Friday afternoon I banked about
4.5 hours of rest before the start. The general plan was to take six hours off
(three hours before local sunrise each night). Unfortunately my brain again
ignored the blaring alarm buzzer for an extra hour Sunday morning (I have a long
history of sleeping through alarms on Aruba during contests) ...a definite oh
crap moment. Quickly found PJ4NG calling an endless string of unanswered CQs on
15 meters ... felt somewhat relieved ... since conditions had notably weakened
as predicted and my extra hour of unscheduled rest had likely only cost me 50 to
75 sunrise period contacts on 80/40 ... not catastrophic.
Saturday morning conditions were about as good as I'd hoped they would be.
Spent an hour on 20, then an hour on 15, before moving to 10 meters at 1400z.
Five of the next six hours yielded solid 200+ hours on 10 meters (and a 200+
hour on 15m). During the initial burst on ten I had a 230 hour, my best rate of
the weekend.
My intent was to maximize the number of 10 meter contacts the first day with the
predicted solar disturbance Sunday looming. Logged 1122 on ten the first day ...
by far my best band during the first half of the contest.
I was surprised to find that at the beginning of my first rest period (0800z) I
was dead even in contacts (1435) with my 2021 HP(U) effort, but behind in mults
because of the poor 160 conditions. This exceeded my expectations!
I aimed the station beams at 320 degrees at the start, which slightly favors the
central and western USA. Never touched the rotor controllers once. With Yagi
tips pointing toward EU, there was a deep null which effectively made EU signals
disappear - it was like having tunnel vision toward the States and Canada. JK
antennas rock!
Transitioning to 15 and then 20 meters near the end of the first day was
seamless, the rate remained strong with each band change. Twenty meters
Saturday afternoon sounded completely normal ... the front loading of contacts
on 20 at the contest start didn't seem to have had any ill-effects on rate.
At the end of 24 hours the line score was 3734q, 312m, for 3.5M points. It
appeared the pace supported achieving my goals.
Cycled through the lower bands for the next seven hours of darkness till bed
time - trying to be on 160 meters at the top of each hour per tradition. During
this period rates notably dropped off when compared to 2021. Difficult to
determine if this was because I was running low power or due to a general
drop-off in overall activity. I suspect it was probably a combination of both.
Conditions were noticeably subdued as Sunday progressed. Twenty, fifteen and
ten meters all opened an hour later than on Saturday. Although ten seemed OK,
fifteen was a consistently better band for running.
Spent the final three hours of the contest on 20 meters. It was time to make up
for having purposely ignoring the band all day, hoping for a strong finish.
Averaged 150/hour the last three hours and crossed the 6,000 contact mark with a
full five minutes to spare.
During the weekend, over 80% of all contacts were made sending by hand and
nearly 100% in QSK mode. I enjoy both.
A huge THANK YOU to the 141 operators who worked P44W on SIX BANDS and another
190 of you that made it into the log on FIVE BANKS. I had as much fun working
you as you did chasing me down. BRAVO! And a special thanks to my fellow CWOPS
and FOC members for being 'everywhere' all weekend!
Also special thanks to those of you who were willing to try a move to another
band with me for a new multiplier - it was greatly appreciated!
Hoping to return once again to this One Happy Island for the WPX CW in May.
73,
John, W2GD
Cabrillo Statistics by K5KA & N6TV Provided by K8IA
CONTEST: ARRL-DX-CW
CALLSIGN: P44W
OPERATOR: W2GD
-------------- Q S O R a t e S u m m a r y ---------------------
Hour 160 80 40 20 15 10 Rate Total Pct
--------------------------------------------------------------------
0000 0 0 0 223 0 0 223 223 3.7
0100 0 0 107 108 0 0 215 438 7.3
0200 30 180 0 0 0 0 210 648 10.8
0300 42 2 139 0 0 0 183 831 13.8
0400 48 130 6 0 0 0 184 1015 16.9
0500 37 0 135 0 0 0 172 1187 19.7
0600 15 104 5 0 0 0 124 1311 21.8
0700 13 29 57 0 0 0 99 1410 23.4
0800 7 6 12 0 0 0 25 1435 23.9
0900 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1435 23.9
1000 7 21 0 0 0 0 28 1463 24.3
1100 0 8 106 1 0 0 115 1578 26.2
1200 0 0 14 27 90 0 131 1709 28.4
1300 0 0 0 1 140 8 149 1858 30.9
1400 0 0 0 0 0 199 199 2057 34.2
1500 0 0 0 0 1 204 205 2262 37.6
1600 0 0 0 0 12 182 194 2456 40.8
1700 0 0 0 0 209 1 210 2666 44.3
1800 0 0 0 0 9 198 207 2873 47.8
1900 0 0 0 0 1 148 149 3022 50.2
2000 0 0 0 0 144 53 197 3219 53.5
2100 0 0 0 0 118 60 178 3397 56.5
2200 0 0 0 0 67 69 136 3533 58.7
2300 0 0 0 178 20 0 198 3731 62.0
0000 0 0 41 108 0 0 149 3880 64.5
0100 0 4 154 0 0 0 158 4038 67.1
0200 7 21 91 1 0 0 120 4158 69.1
0300 30 61 0 0 0 0 91 4249 70.6
0400 13 16 52 0 0 0 81 4330 72.0
0500 4 0 89 0 0 0 93 4423 73.5
0600 1 4 45 0 0 0 50 4473 74.4
0700 1 42 0 0 0 0 43 4516 75.1
0800 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4516 75.1
0900 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4516 75.1
1000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4516 75.1
1100 0 0 10 0 0 0 10 4526 75.2
1200 0 0 52 24 0 0 76 4602 76.5
1300 0 0 0 72 13 0 85 4687 77.9
1400 0 0 0 20 28 7 55 4742 78.8
1500 0 0 0 66 22 24 112 4854 80.7
1600 0 0 0 0 47 75 122 4976 82.7
1700 0 0 0 0 169 0 169 5145 85.5
1800 0 0 0 0 147 0 147 5292 88.0
1900 0 0 0 0 118 30 148 5440 90.4
2000 0 0 0 0 41 70 111 5551 92.3
2100 0 0 0 171 5 0 176 5727 95.2
2200 0 0 0 120 6 9 135 5862 97.5
2300 0 0 0 153 0 0 153 6015 100.0
------------------------------------------------------
Total 255 628 1115 1273 1407 1337 6015
Gross QSOs=6158 Dupes=143 Net QSOs=6015
Unique callsigns worked = 2604
The best 60 minute rate was 230/hour from 1418 to 1517
The best 30 minute rate was 242/hour from 0219 to 0248
The best 10 minute rate was 258/hour from 1730 to 1739
There were 110 bandchanges.
Multi-band QSOs
---------------
1 bands 1188
2 bands 485
3 bands 339
4 bands 261
5 bands 190
6 bands 141
The following stations were worked on 6 bands:
K9PG K0RF K9CT K2AX W1QK WG3J
W2CG NJ3I K1AR N2TK NE3F WW3S
W2OIB W3FIZ K1RX N4WW N6RO VE3JM
K3NM W2GDJ K3LR N5RZ K1DW K3CT
K1TTT W3MA W2YR NA8V N1RR K3WW
K5KG VE3AT W6YI N4RA K3RL W1TC
K1LT K7BV W1RM WO1N N4SS W9VW
W3IP W0PR K9NW W9SN K5WA WE9V
K9MMS W7RM AE6Y K9IMM KU2C K3SW
K4AB N4TZ K5EK WO4O K5NA W8FJ
VE3EJ AB3CX NX3A KA2K N8OO K2CJ
AF4T NF3R N4RV W2MKM N0AX NN1SS
W2IRT K3MD W2KA N2SR K9RS VE3RZ
N6CW N3IQ AA9A K0ZR VA2WA W1GD
WA2CP W1DX K3WJV N3RS AA3B N3RD
W3FV N2RC K3EL WX4G NS3T K0OO
K3OO K7SV N3JT NF1O K4XL K2QMF
W9RE K1LZ W3LPL K1ZZ AB2E N2GC
K3PP N3HEE NX6T N1JP KR2Q NN3Q
NY6DX K2GM WY3A ND4Y K1RV WF4W
N4XL W1UE AA1K W2FU K1BX W4RM
K1IR KA4RRU WB0TEV K3AJ K3UL N4PX
N3QE W7YAQ AA5JF W3RE VE3NNT KG7CW
KU8E N2BA KE0L
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