ARRL DX Contest, SSB - 2021
Call: K2DRH
Operator(s): K2DRH
Station: K2DRH
Class: SO Unlimited HP
QTH: IL
Operating Time (hrs):
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160:
80: 64 42
40: 154 67
20: 324 87
15: 102 35
10:
-------------------
Total: 645 231 Total Score = 440,055
Club: Society of Midwest Contesters
Comments:
Hoo-boy that was painful. As already noted conditions were not great. Since
multi op at NV9L is suspended and my station is not really set up for a DX
contest I’d just about forgotten about this test when the other night Manu
PY5/LU9ESD reminded me when he was checking out ZW5B on 40M around the time I
usually get on late at night to ragchew with Mike K6MYC of M2 and the ZS1 crowd
that checks in with us. Being a top tier VHF, but necessarily casual Domestic
HF Contester (when NCJ doesn’t schedule an unnecessary conflict) my station is
not currently designed for DX contesting. I only have a single tribander, no
receive antennas nor any real DX 160M capability. Maybe that would work OK on
the East Coast but it sure doesn’t play well here in the Midwest Black Hole.
I do have a 40M 2el at 160 ft that works well for DX as well as domestic
however, and a very low angle 80M wire. So I figured I’d get on and try to
add 500 or so QSOs to my Society of Midwest Contesters Lifetime Achievement
award of 10K QSOs from Jan 2020 going forward in some preselected contests that
the club is interested in. Mission accomplished. Since I can’t get on for
most NAQPs because they schedule conflicts with the major VHF contests, and
unless we get some really rock and roll 6M Es in the June VHF or July CQWW VHF
like we did in the mid 2000’s, it’s difficult to rack up 10K quickly without
doing a lot of HF contesting and I’m only at around 6-7K now.
10M consisted of a few SA PY big guns who couldn’t hear me. 15M was better but
never opened to mainland Eu and only seemed to consist of Caribbean and SA big
guns who didn’t S&P much. That left 20M which was a total splatter fest
zoo. When I used to play in this test back in the late 80s and mid 90’s from
my old QTH in northern Alabama near Huntsville it seemed way different, even at
the sunspot low. I’m sure the location was way better being more southerly
but back then it seemed that a US station even with modest antennas could find a
place on 20M and enjoy a nice run into Eu. After all it is a US/Canada focus
contest where we are the only fodder for all the DX.
I tried to run on 20 at least a dozen times and gave it at least 15 mins each
time (while S&P on the other Flex slice) always with the same result. No
pileup, no rate, few callers - most of them domestic no point doofuses. Ever
increasing splatter from both sides. Sometimes someone I couldn’t hear would
move in and get a few callers, but most of the time a 3 letter Euro big gun who
was at least 10 over would shamelessly move in right on top of me and as soon as
someone spotted them (which seemed to take less than a minute), get a pileup
going and blow me away.
I was running full legal and had no trouble getting though on the first call
most times, but since I’m apparently not as strong in Illinois as the east
coast stations or the MW big guns I’m sure it was deliberate disregard. I
KNOW they heard me! Even went back and tested that a few time by calling in in
the pileup after a while and got right through. 40M after dark was even worse.
I’ve had that same thing happen as a mutltiop op on 40M at night, but was able
to hold my ground at the larger MW multiop stations that have call recognition.
But even at the multiops there is never any real hot rate to be had at night on
40M. With my station it wasn’t worth fighting for a spot since I wasn’t
getting any action anyway even when it was clear!
Seemed like just about every station I called had at least 2 or three other
callers, sometimes a whole lot more if they were new cluster spots or uncommon
multipliers. The hard ones seemed easy, even the Asians, while the less common
Caribbean ones on 15M were much harder to crack. Sunday was really bad. I
actually listened to one relatively rare Carrib Sunday afternoon running 15M by
the numbers for well over an hour on another slice with huge pileup. He somehow
managed to skip over the 8, 9 and 0’s by going to a full-on pile after 7’s
for a couple minutes, then right back to ones even though a 9 got through and
told him there were lots of 9’s and 0’s calling. He kept saying over and
over that he wanted to be fair – yeah right! I finally nailed him for a mult
right after he went to 2s after a 20 plus minute run of 1s finally petered out.
Made a point of telling him I was in IL and he was loud in 9 land but he just
ignored me too.
80M was actually fun Saturday night and not too bad Sunday morning. I could
hear and work 90% of the spots I saw as well as a few that I didn’t see
spotted. But there really wasn’t a lot of stations calling and there was
plenty of room. But just about my CQs went unanswered (at least by anyone I
could hear). I did work several JAs in the morning as well as VK and ZL so it
was really pretty good, but SA wasn’t really well represented in my log for
some reason.
73 de Bob K2DRH
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