CQWW WPX Contest, SSB
Call: WP2Z
Operator(s): N6DE, K6EP
Station: WP2Z
Class: M/S HP
QTH: Windwood
Operating Time (hrs): 48
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160:
80: 33
40: 244
20: 1334
15: 1487
10: 2141
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Total: 5239 Prefixes = 1162 Total Score = 15,690,486
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
Run Station: Kenwood TS-850, Alpha 87A
Mult Station: Yaesu FT-920
Antennas: Force12 C3, Cushcraft A3, Cushcraft MA5 vertical, Cushcraft 40-2CD,
80m dipole
Other: Networked Writelog v10.30, WX0B SixPak, Dunestar/ICE bandpass filters
Eric K6EP and I decided to team up and take a ham vacation to Windwood for a
week. We had a wonderful time! Here is a summary of our experience:
Touring the Island
Although Windwood is a breathtaking radio location, we wanted to spend some time
touring St. Croix. We took a tour of the Cruzan Rum factory (with rum tasting
included, yummmmmmm!), visited an old sugar cane plantation, toured an old
Danish fort, gawked at the VLA radio telescope, hiked around Point Udall
(eastern most point of the United States), soaked up some sun on the St. Croix
beaches and piers, hung out in downtown Christiansted, and had some St. Croix
beer with some "local flavor." It was very interesting (and sad) to learn about
the island's history involving over 100 sugar cane plantations in the slave
trade for rum.
We also heard on a local radio station that there was a big BBQ/music event for
the Easter weekend featuring an Elvis impersonator. Somehow we missed that
one.
Operating Outside the Contest
Outside of the WPX SSB contest, Eric and I combined to make over 1000 QSOs,
spread across every HF band (including the WARC bands), using SSB/CW/RTTY. I am
continually amazed by the pileups that KP2 generates on the bands. One would
think that all the previous contest operations from KP2 would have greatly
thinned out the pileups. Not so. The day we arrived, I had a sked with Kent
K6ENT on 14.255 before moving to CW with him. Unfortunately things did not work
out, and I continued to hold off Europeans as I called for Kent. After I was
convinced that the sked wouldn't happen, I decided to open it up to the stations
who tried to call me previously, thinking it would be just a few minutes and
then I would go to bed. It was already 11:30pm local, and we had been up about
40 hours straight, with a couple hours of sleep here and there on airplanes.
Well, so much for a few minutes! A very large EU pileup ensued. I really
should have gone split, but the idea seemed absurd at 14.255, and I had no
intention of staying long. Of course, no one can turn down a pile like that, so
I ended up staying for a few hours to log at least a few hundred EU stations
on that frequency! Kent ended up having to bust through the EU wall an hour
later. I think it was about 1:30am or 2am when Eric glared at me, got out his
ear plugs, and closed his door! I then said hell with it, told everyone to
please work WP2Z in the contest, and went to bed! Experiences like these are
ones you never forget.
The Contest
Eric and I studied propagation predictions using W6ELProp, and had a rough band
plan for the whole contest. Eric made a sheet from the predictions which made
it easy to see what band was open to JA/EU/US at any given time. It helped a
lot, and for the most part, the predictions were right on.
We also had a solid M/S equipment setup which was very helpful. We felt loud in
the days before the contest, and hoped for 6000 QSOs and 20M points.
Unfortunately, we fell short. When I operated WP2Z in 2000 with W6XK and W7MH,
WPX SSB felt so easy. Everything just seemed to fall into our laps the whole
weekend. This time, it really seemed like a lot more work! It felt like we had
to fight against much more QRM and fight to make each QSO! It was more
mentally
draining, and several times during the contest, I think both of us lost some
mental focus on the run station, asking for too many repeats. But then we had
our share of moments when we were in a groove. Those are exhilarating.
Eric and I split up the operating time 24 hours a piece, with 3-4 hour shifts.
This made it convenient to grab a bite to eat, take a nap, or check out the mult
station when not CQing. There were some great EU and US pileups. I was
absolutely amazed by the number of Russians in the contest! JA was a struggle
all weekend.
The mult station proved to be a great advantage. We had 162 QSOs on that
station. I looked through the log and tallied which mults called in later in
the contest on the run station. It turned out that 76 of the 162 mults were
only worked on the mult station. I calculated the QSO points from the 162 QSOs
and factored the value of 76 mults to our total. In summary, the mult station
added 1.5M points to our final score. Not bad at all!
Eric did a great job with his first contest from DX land. He also set up the run
station to record the entire contest. I'm glad we did because it is fun to go
back and hear QSOs with friends, and listen to funny moments! (One example is
when K6XX called in and Eric purposely came back to K9XX! And no, we have
absolutely no desire to waste 48 hours listening to the recording to correct
our
logging mistakes.) It will be an archive that we'll keep for a long time to
remember the great time we had in the contest!
We had a disappointing encounter with W1BFA and his "International Air Traffic
Controllers Net" on 20m. The good news is that his intentional interference
was
fully recorded, opening the potential for enforcement options to be pursued, if
desired.
The last minute of the contest was a wild one! I was walking a new station
through the exchange, thinking he would be our final QSO in the contest. Then
all of a sudden, the floodgates opened and I talked the fastest I ever have in
that last 45 seconds of the contest! Eric kept a close watch on the time,
and pounded on the table when the contest was over. I think we had 6 stations in
the last 45 seconds! There were still 2-3 stations calling after the end of the
contest!
Thanks
Eric and I had a fantastic time in KP2, and feel it was a major highlight of our
ham radio experience! We would like to thank the following people for helping
us make that happen:
-Kent K6ENT for allowing us to borrow his WX0B SixPak, Kenwood rig control,
laptop, and bandpass filter.
-Stan K8MJZ for the use of his Yaesu FT-920 and Alpha 87A at Windwood.
Thanks for all the QSOs! QSL via KU9C.
73...
-Dean - N6DE
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