CQ WORLD WIDE DX CONTEST -- 2002
Call: OH6NIO
Category: Single Operator Assisted
Power: High Power
Band: All Band
Mode: CW
Country: Finland
Zone: 15
On-time: 37 hours
BAND QSO QSO PTS PTS/QSO ZONES COUNTRIES
160 37 40 1.08 5 33
80 116 172 1.48 13 63
40 384 770 2.01 30 102
20 558 1198 2.15 28 101
15 686 1617 2.36 31 118
10 253 574 2.27 27 115
---------------------------------------------------
Totals 2034 4371 2.15 134 532 => 2,911,086
All reports sent were 599 15, unless otherwise noted.
Equipment Description: FT-1000MP + 2x3-500ZG, IC-765 100W, 160m inv vee, 80m
vertical, 40m 2 el yagi + vertical, 20m 4el/4el stack + 3el EU + 3el JA +
3el mult, 15m 5el/5el stack + 4el eu + 5el JA + 4 el mult, 10m 5el + 3el EU
+ 4 el mult.
Remarks:
I had improved my station a bit but I was not ready for SO2R big time. I
still missed an amplifier for the 2nd radio. The automatic antenna switching
was not tested yet. Some of my antennas were not working etc. Anyway I made
a desicion to work mostly for fun but also to test a few things and get a
better feel of the new rig. If I could get a decent multiplier count I could
be satisfied. I also decided that I will sleep well this time just as I also
did in the SSB. I took many short breaks during the weekend because the
propagation was sometimes very poor. I may have missed a couple of openings
but I really don't care much. I had my fun anyway. Working DXCC from 40 to
10m really feels great.
The contest started with the higher bands completely dead so I just S&P the
first hour on 40m and netted 84Q and 66 multipliers. The next hours were
plain torture on 80m and 160m so at 0349Z I decide to take a nap and wait
for the better propagation.
I wake up after 07Z and work a few mults on 80m and soon the band is dead.
No openings to NA/CA. On 40m I grab many nice mults and at 08Z I start to
work a small pile-up. After half an hour I am hurrying to 20m only to
realize that there is no opening into the west coat. I just S&P for an hour
until 0938Z when I finally QSY to 15m. I try to S&P as quickly as I can
because this is the first time on 15m and there is a lot of multipliers
available. I also notice that JAs are very weak so S&P is more productive
than running. I have no hurry to 10m because there is no propagation to JA.
After 11Z I start on 10m knowing that it is too late for the Far East. I
just S&P until 1333Z when I try to run. My pile-up is drained-off after 30
minutes when 10m goes down.
During the next hour I take a shower and eat something and work a handful of
QSOs. After 15Z I go to 40m to look for the Far East. I log nice mults AH2R,
9M2TO and VR2KW. Then I make a brief visit on 80m and log JT1CO. 1607Z I qsy
to 15m where I still have less than 100q. Thinks do not look very good. I
mainly S&P because calling cq does not produce much. Finally at 1718Z 15m
shows some signs of life and I start running. One time I have to move my
frequency but then I go on running until 1854Z when 15m dies completely and
never recovers. Around 1930Z 40m is peaking to Japan and I work the best
pile-ups I have ever had into JA and the Far East on 40m. Unfortunately the
fun is over after one hour and I take a break. After 21Z I start running on
20m and I keep on running until 23Z. I notice that I'm getting RF into my
keying so I have to reduce my power. The next hour I just mostly S&P on the
low bands but I also have a 30 minute mini pile-up on 40m into the states.
On Sunday I wake up at 0637Z and check 80m which is the worst I have ever
heard. I can just barely copy a couple of stations from USA and the
Caribbean but no QSO in the log. I qsy to 40m which only yield a couple of
mults like D44TD and T48K. 20m is not much better than on Saturday and I
keep on S&P:ing for an hour.
At 08Z I start to run and I mostly work 1-pointers from EU. At 0938 I have
to QSY to more productive 10m where I S&P many good mults from the Far East,
Pacific and Africa. At 1127Z I QSY to 15m and start to run EU and the Far
East until 1212Z when I stop for 25 minutes to S&P the Caribbean and other
awailable mults. Then I go on with the pile-up until 1420Z working USA and a
lot of EU.
At 1432Z it is time to check the gray-line on 80m. As the result of this
brief visit on 80m I log VQ9X, W6RJ and ZL6QH as double mults.
After that I jump inefficiently between 10, 15, 20 and 40m. The propagation
is going down. I also make a short break.
At 1636Z I start to run on 20m and the west coast is coming in now with good
signals. At 1710Z I QSY to 15m and the fun goes on for almost an hour. Then
the conditions deteriorate and I struggle on 20m. 1856Z 15m sounds a bit
better and I try to run. USA is now coming through. When I log SL0W I think
to myself what a slow contest!
1921Z I am surprised because 10m is opening. I work double mult 6J2MX just
in the noise level. At 1930Z I start running because I can hear some nice
signals from USA. I have not been too much on 10m and I was missing most of
the big guns so soon I have a massive pile-up that is over at 2023Z when the
band finally dies. Then I hurry to 15m and the same fun starts again and it
lasts until 2204Z.
The rest of the contest is jumping from one band to another trying to find
the missing multipliers. At 2323Z I desperately looked for mults on 20m to
break the DXCC there and I worked P40E, WP2Z, KP3Z, YV4GLD, HP3XUG and then
finally a double mult 3G1X as country number 101. The last 10 minutes of the
contest I had a nice mini pile-up and I thought that we could now extend the
contest just a couple of hours because the band was finally wide open. I
tried very hard all of the evening to improve my score but I was still a bit
shy of 3M.
Overall it was a very nice weekend and there was a lot of nice dx available
on the bands. Somehow CQWW CW seems always to have some magical appeal to me
whatever propagation we might have. I have never heard such horrendous
pile-ups in CQWW that I now heard. I was not pleased to hear some people
working split. There will be big reductions to scores as NIL-QSOs.
Rundown band by band:
It was a pity that the propagation was so poor on 160 and 80m. 160m was
especially difficult. I tried to work SV1NA but he was copying USA but not
me! When I tried to work A61AJ on 160m he never heard me but worked a a lot
of JAs. Those are just a few humiliating examples. On 80m the normal morning
opening into USA and the Caribbean was near to nothing and therefore no QSOs
resulted.
I was surprised how many mults I could work on 40m so that band really
exceeded my expectations and beat my 20m mult count in both zones and
countries. I guess that I should have called cq on 40m a lot more than I
did.
I am quite dissapointed about the poor performance on 20m. The propagation
was very difficult there because we did not have our normal openings into
USA and there is never enough JAs on 20m for a good run. Later on Sunday the
band opened but it was already too late because I was working busy on 10 and
15m. It was also a big struggle to get a decent multiplier count on 20m. I
still missed many zones that I usually work.
15m was poor on Saturday but improved a lot on Sunday although the
propagation into Japan was almost non-existent. 15m was the best band in QSO
count and inmult count. With normal or good conditions I could have worked
400-500 extra QSOs.
10m was a very difficult band. Most of the time the propagation was not
good enough for running people. Many times breaking DX pile-ups was tough.
Sometimes I felt like the last EU-station running QRP to work a Caribbean
station. Also some of the African stations were covered by the EU-wall etc.
It took sometimes 10 minutes to break through. Usually I just gave up after
a couple of minutes.
|