ARRL INTERNATIONAL DX CONTEST -- 1999
Call: WA7BNM Country: United States
Mode: SSB Category: Single Op All Band, Unassisted
Power: 150W (low power) Section: LAX
Op Time: 32.5 hours
BAND QSO QSO PTS PTS/Q COUNTRIES
160 0 0 3.0 0
80 43 129 3.0 25
40 93 279 3.0 38
20 210 630 3.0 69
15 545 1635 3.0 87
10 328 984 3.0 71
--------------------------------------
Totals 1219 3657 3.0 290 = 1,060,530
160 80 40 20 15 10 ALL percent
North America 0 26 26 38 43 54 187 15.3
South America 0 4 9 35 24 75 147 12.1
Europe 0 0 8 65 113 15 201 16.5
Asia 0 9 43 57 342 149 600 49.2
Africa 0 0 1 1 5 6 13 1.1
Oceania 0 4 6 14 18 29 71 5.8
Antennas:
160 - no antenna
80 - Force 12 EF-180C rotatable dipole @ 100 ft
40 - M2 3-el 40m yagi @ 90 ft
20 \
15 - Force 12 C3XL tribanders at 72 and 105 ft
10 /
Comments:
First of all, congrats to Jeff, N5TJ, for demonstrating that low power
doesn't mean low scoring.
After several years of declining scores (declining solar flux), I didn't
participate last year, so I was looking forward to this one to take
advantage of the improving solar conditions. Basically, my goals were to
break the 6-land low power record (1989 - 729k) and to break a million
points. Managed to break the record by Saturday night, but the million
points was a maybe until the end.
160m -
Didn't bother to put up the balloon vertical. In retrospect, probably
missed a few mults here, but this band has never contributed much to my low
power score.
80m -
Getting the problem with my 80m dipole fixed prior to the contest was
rewarded with the best conditions I've had during a DX contest on this
band. A very quiet band both nights, and I was amazed that I could work
what I heard without resorting to screaming into the microphone.
40m -
Having 3 elements on this band (even though they're shortened) makes a huge
difference. Picked up a few EU multipliers and ran a few JAs, but basically
an S&P effort.
20m -
This was the most disappointing band of the contest for me. Expected to
work more mults and more Asians (particularly JAs), but the band just never
seemed to be very productive. Couldn't even manage a QRZ? out of some EU
CQers.
15m -
The money band. Lots of JAs to run. Conditions were very quiet so I could
copy signals just above the noise floor of my transceiver, which was
helpful since worked a lot of JA QRPers -- down to 1 watt.
10m -
Based on my brief operation on this band during the ARRL DX CW contest, I
had hoped this band would really be open to EU, but only worked a few EU.
On Sunday morning I happened to be on 10m when it briefly opened to EU. In
a span of 15 minutes or so around EU sunset, a DL and a few others
"magically" appeared at S9+ and then disappeared.
73 de Bruce, WA7BNM (bhorn@hornucopia.com)
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