ARRL DX Contest, CW - 2023
Call: K2DM
Operator(s): K2DM
Station: K2DM
Class: SOAB QRP
QTH: NFL
Operating Time (hrs): 40
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 19 13
80: 71 36
40: 248 62
20: 180 60
15: 229 56
10: 319 60
-------------------
Total: 1066 287 Total Score = 917,826
Club: The Villages Amateur Radio Club
Comments:
Before the contest I set two goals: win my category (QRP) and make over 1,000
contacts. Time will tell on the first goal, but propagation and activity
definitely helped me achieve the second goal.
It takes a certain mind set to make a (nearly) full-time QRP entry. You have to
have patience, because it sometimes will take you more than a few calls to get
through to some stations. But you also have to have confidence (arrogance?) to
jump into a pileup expecting positive results. This happens more often than you
might expect. You also have to understand that your rate on Sunday afternoon
will probably fall to single digits per hour.
So, there I was, butt-in-chair about an hour before the contest started, ready
to walk 40M from bottom to top, hoping to make at least as many contacts as last
year in that first hour. Overnight I cycled through 40, 80, 160 and 20M, and I
did well compared with last year. I only slept a couple of times for about an
hour each, making sure I caught the EU sunrise and any surprise 20M openings.
20M DID provide some contacts, even with 5W.
I didn't spend much time on 20M Saturday morning because 15 and 10 opened rather
early. You cannot do well operating QRP unless you do quite a bit of CQing. So
as I S&P'd my way up the bands, I stopped on clear frequencies and tossed
out some CQs. I am amazed at how the first CQ is often rewarded with an answer.
Two or three contacts later the frequency is lost to someone with a bigger
signal than mine, so I resume S&P. Of course, the CQ success rate increases
as you QSY from 20 to 15, and from 15 to 10.
I slept a little longer Saturday night, then waited for 20M to open. When it
did open, 15 and 10 followed quickly, so I followed the old axiom of being on
the highest open band. Even with that, I did return to 15 and 20 to boost the
totals on those bands. Then Sunday afternoon arrived!
Even QRO ops see activity decline on Sunday afternoon. There simply aren't as
many stations to work. "Packet" pileups are common on many common,
non-multiplier stations. This "feature" of Sunday is probably an
annoyance to ops in the assisted category, but it is deadly to the non-assisted
QRP op. So I find myself waiting minutes until the big guns have finished, and
I can get through. Of course, I could have moved on, but to what? There are
only so many new stations that come on Sunday afternoon. To be honest, Sunday
afternoons are BORING. I typically have rates in the single digits in the last
four hours of the contest, and I have to work hard to get that. So this year I
packed up and went home at about 4:15 PM, having made TWO contacts in the 3:00
hour. If I don't achieve my goal of winning my category, so be it.
One interesting aspect of spending a lot of time QRP S&Ping is that I hear
many friends beat me out with their flagpoles and end-fed wires. I heard ND4G,
W3US, WB2ART, K1CTR, K2TE and K2PS at various times. Nice going guys!
It goes without saying that my success is in large part to the MANY DX stations
who stuck with me to get my call and exchange right. And to those (mostly)
patient QRO stations who stood by and let me make the contacts. I appreciate
it!
I beat last year's contact total by 300 QSOs and a ton of multipliers. Thank
you sunspots!
73,
George K2DM
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