CQ WORLD WIDE DX CONTEST -- 1997
Call: ZM2K Country: New Zealand
Mode: SSB Category: Multi Multi
BAND QSO QSO PTS PTS/QSO ZONES COUNTRIES
160 14 12 0.86 3 6
80 125 285 2.28 18 28
40 1054 2938 2.79 34 87
20 2257 6530 2.89 36 128
15 1349 3930 2.91 30 71
10 253 734 2.90 9 9
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Totals 5052 14429 2.86 130 329 => 6,622,911
All reports sent were 59(9), unless otherwise noted.
Operator List: ZL2DX ZL2ARF ZL1CN ZL2AMI ZL1AZE ZL1AXG ZL2MF ZL2IQ ZL2IR ZL2BSJ
Equipment Description: TS930 (2), TS850, IC756 & assorted dodgy
looking homebrew 'linears', voice keyers, speech manglers and other
spread spectrum equipment.
Club Affiliation: Kiwi Contest Group
Comment:
Without a doubt 20 m was the best. We had a roaring start on 20, with
incredible runs into the US. Open around the clock, we found towards
the end pretty much all signals on that and had been worked.The
re-adjusted gamma match on the 4 el. 20 m monobander may have
contributed too. The band was awash with signals, making runs into Eu
quite difficult at times. Finding a clear spot and holding it was
tricky.
40 produced good signals but our 40 m op (ZL2MF) complained about
hearing S9++ DX but not being able to be heard. 80 and 160 were
mainly grazed for multilpiers. With operators away overseas for work
or playing DXpedition on the Chathams, we were a bit understaffed on
the low bands.
Another interesting band was 15. We didn't work quite as many JA's,
but had several long windows into Eu, often to specific countries
such as DL/HB9 and I. Also for the first time in years we had a good
path into Eu across North America. Right up to the end Chris ZL2DX
had an amazing run into the US. He said he tried to get the rate
meter to hit 400 but couldn't quite get there. I found the US short
callsigns to be an advantage, they certainly speed things up.
10 never really fired for us, although it tried to. I spent some time
on 10 in the last 2 hrs of the contest wearing out the F1 key and the
voice keyer. In the last hour 10 opened without warning to the US
West Coast. NL7Z was heard calling CQ and worked with some
difficulty. A handful of others were worked in the last 30 minutes
on 10. We missed out on VK and zones 30,31. It was frustrating to
watch the 10 m spots on the DX Cluster from stations further North,
not having much 10 m propagation ourselves.
With summer approaching fast, we expect bigger and better things from
10 in the CQWW-CW. The ARRL 10 m DX could be *very* interesting.
Everything considered, this has to be one of our better SSB efforts
in recent years after the disasterous 1996 CQWW. Low bands are
never the best for us. In spite of the low solar flux index the
higher bands sounded lively. Things are looking up.
Wilbert, ZL2BSJ.
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