This was my first single-op DX contest effort in many years and my first
guest-op at a full-blown big-gun 2-radio station so I decided I better
prepare properly.
My first concern was how to deal with sleep deprivation. I know a 36-hour
contest is nothing compared to a full 48-hour effort, but it's still
physically demanding. Dan AD6DO loaned me his full set of NCJ back-issues
where I found several articles on this topic, but there were really only a
few basic tips. It seems there are no real secrets and you just have to
"deal with it". I know about "NoDoze" and other similar caffene pills, but
had never tried them (I'm not a coffee drinker either). I bought some
Vivarin (caffene pill) as an "emergency stand-by" in case I was in really
bad shape. I didnt think it would be a good idea to try these for the
first time during the contest in case they affected me adversely, so I
tried taking one in the morning the week before the contest. It didnt make
me feel any more awake or alert, and killed my appetite for the rest of the
day, so I'm glad I got that experiment out of the way and chucked the
caffene pills.
Being a propagation & solar activity buff, checking the propagation
forecast was my next order of business. Band conditions leading up to the
contest were excellent and a high SFI and low A & K indicies looked
promising. Unfortunately a flare occurred on Thursday which was
accompanied by a large CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) which was predicted to
hit Earth sometime on Saturday and pump the A-index up to 25 (goodbye
Europe!). Knowing this, I figured I better run as much Europe as possible
in the first 24-hours. As it turns out, the CME missed Earth completely
and band conditions were outstanding. Just like the weatherman, sometimes
solar predictions are right and sometimes they are wrong! :)
I laid out a band plan for all 48-hours for both radios, and marked
possible good time-slots to take off-time in. I had also operated in the
Honor Sprint the weekend before at W6EEN (using NE6N) to get familiar with
the station.
Friday afternoon started with Murphy paying an early visit right before the
contest started. I had noticed that the line voltage had been low all day.
About 20 minutes before the contest started, there was a long power
brownout which triped everything off. I turned everything back on, but
started to panic when the computer would not come on! After playing with
it for 5 minutes, it was pronounced dead. Luckly Don has a backup computer
which I manged to swap in with only a few minutes to spare before the
contest started. WHEW!
The Bands
---------
10m: Nothing here the first night except Pacific. Asia had good
sigs on Saturday between 2200z and 0100z. It was open to Asia
on Sunday too, but not many signals. No EU in the mornings, but
heard some while pointing at South America. I did manage to work
a handful of EA's and an EI over the pole around 2200z on Sunday.
15m: This was THE band as many have noted. High rates to EU started as
early as 6:00am (1300z). I'm sure I could have run here earlier,
but I spent some time after sunrise on 40m. I ran here Saturday
night until 0500z because it was so much quieter and not as kaotic
as 20, and the rate was just as good. Could have ran here much
later, but 20 is mainly a night-time band now, so I knew I had to
get there not too late.
20m: Also very hot. After about 0300z, everything was loud and the
band was packed. The band was open to EU and Asia all night
long. Unfortunately, there are some noisy powerpoles in the area
which cause periodic QRN on 20m. The noise seemed to cycle with
about four minutes of a nice and quiet band, and then the noise
would ramp up for about a minute and then go away again. Luckly
most of the time signals were loud enough to get over the noise,
but sometimes I had to stall a bit and repeatedly ask for fills
until the noise went away when weaker stations called in.
40m: Somewhat disappointing. The band was noisy during the evenings,
and it was a struggle to work the 16 europeans I did. Trying to
run EU would have been futile. JA's which usually start coming
in around 0900z were very scarce until 1030z the first night. The
majority of JAs I worked were between an hour before sunrise and
30 minutes after. The SSB QRM in the mornings was so bad, I had
to QSY often in fear that JAs might have trouble hearing me through
it. Rather than try to dig out a JA every few minutes, I decided
the EU rate on the higher bands was more important and would better
help my score.
80m: A complete waste with only 4 QSOs. I often listened here on the
second radio, but it was almost always dead. This was obviously
a high-band contest.
Off-times
---------
1100z - 1230z
1900z - 2320z
0850z - 1220z
1900z - 2140z
With only 1.5 hours of "sleep" the first night, I was barely conscious
Saturday morning! Luckly, once I got past a few hours after my normal
waking time, I started feeling normal again. Since 40m was relatively
crummy the first night, I decided to sleep a lot more the second night in
favor of higher rates on 15m all day long. I felt like a million bucks
with 3.5 hours of sleep the second night. It was difficult to take offtime
at 1900z both days (noon) because rates were still high, but I knew I would
get in trouble if I didnt force myself to take time off. I think my
selection of off-times worked out pretty well, and were pretty close to
what I had originally planned.
With one hour left in the contest, I was sitting at 2933 QSOs. I knew 3000
was within reach, but my previous hour had only 60 QSOs so it would be
close. My adreneline really kicked in at this point. The VFO on the
second radio was spinning like crazy and I managed 18 second radio QSOs in
the last hour alone and finished with 3001 QSOs. WHEW! I made a total
of 398 band changes during the contest, most of which were attributed to
second radio QSOs.
I operated the majority of the contest at 31wpm. I would speed up for the
speedsters (which I am one of) and slow down for people who seemed like
they needed QRS, but 31wpm seemed like a comfortably fast enough speed that
would keep the rate up, and attract more callers than discourage them. 99%
of my exchanges were sent without cut numbers.
WPX is a great contest. Even up to the very last minute, there are still
plenty of multipliers to be found which reduces the common "sunday boredom"
syndrome. In many of the other DX contests, once you get to about 120
countries on a band, it is like finding a needle in a haystack to find
anything new.
Many thanks to Don W6EEN and his wife Phyllis for being such gracious hosts!
73 de Doug, N6RT
/*---------------------------------------------------------------------*/
Doug Brandon http://members.home.com/dab dab@home.com
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