CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW
Call: C4W
Operator(s): 5B4WN
Station: 5B4ES
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: Nicosia, Cyprus
Operating Time (hrs): 43
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 159 8 49
80: 365 17 60
40: 1471 29 92
20: 583 28 79
15: 917 29 86
10: 1276 29 91
------------------------------
Total: 4771 140 457 Total Score = 8,140,692
Club: Aphrodite Contest Group
Comments:
SSDY (same story Different Year!):
Returned last minute to 5B4 (wednesday pm).
Minor antenna repairs on Wednesday night and Thursday night. Weather was
fabulous (25C during the day..Cypriot winter!)
5B4ADA turned up on Thursday doing his magic --> bringing up alpha 91b +dunestar
filters [Ivo who is leaving Cyprus tomorrow for good moving to I7 will be
greatly missed)
Other SO2R work on thursday and friday.
Every year I spend the last few hours before the contest, setting up aerials.
Guess what happened this year (SSDY is a clue)!
NO SLEEP before the contest=very sleepy DURING the contest
Hence at 2 points I gave up and went to sleep hence about 43hr operation.
Despite all these, I felt that conditions were above average. 40m was the best
band on this side and I really liked the high rates on 10m to NA with S0 signal
levels. I now use NO filters (apart from 500Hz) for pile-ups as suggested by
CT1BOH many years ago and train my ears to do the DSP work ---> pile-ups are
rarely unmanageable.
I spent too long chasing mults on the main radio hence compromising the total
QSO score. The DX doubler worked very well and it was useful for quick QSYs.
SO2R I found was very difficult with high rates hence not amazingly productive.
How do good SO2Rers do it?
Alpha 78 is FANTASTIC for quick QSYs (many thanks to N6KI for recommendation)
and 91 worked flawlessly.
Points for next year:
1) Sleep for MANY hours before the contest.
2) Practice SO2R before November
Many thanks for those who called me. Thanks to 5B4ADA for his help EVERY year,
advice and support [he is in my hero book for sure]. And of course many thanks
to my old school 5B4ES which every year puts up with me completely disorganising
their shack for 1 week!
Hopefully we will be there again next year.
73s
Marios
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