CQWW WPX Contest, CW
Call: WC1M
Operator(s): WC1M
Station: WC1M
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: NH
Operating Time (hrs): 35.5
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs
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160: 0
80: 13
40: 829
20: 1134
15: 504
10: 21
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Total: 2501 Prefixes = 768 Total Score = 5,750,016
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
Antennas:
160M - trapped vee @65'
80M - delta loop @75', trapped vee @65'
40M - 40-2CD @75', 4-square
20M - 4-el @72', C3E @50'
15M - 5-el @50', C3E @50'
10M - C3E @50'
580' NE beverage
All yagis on separate tubular towers (no vertical stacks)
Equipment:
FT-1000D + Alpha 87A, FT-1000MP + Acom 2000A, Writelog, TopTen band decoders
and switches.
Congrats to NE4AA(K1TO), KU6W(N6MJ), K3CR(LZ4AX) and K3NA(@W1MK) for great
scores. K1TO really knocked the cover off the ball in this one -- a little like
Funny Cide, he was way ahead of the pack. Dan, sorry to nose you out for second
place in the claimed scores, but with only a 10K point difference between us the
log checkers will decide who gets to keep it. Our UBN percentage was almost the
same last year, so it's really anybody's guess!
This year's contest was almost a replay of last year, with some interesting
differences:
- Once again, the dominant W1 ops either sat this one out or did single-band
efforts. Last year they were busy preparing for WRTC 2002, while this year
perhaps WPX was just too close to Dayton. Or, perhaps predictions of poor
conditions made a Memorial Day weekend with family look more attractive.
Whatever the reason, the W1 field was wide open again.
- Conditions were similar to last year: one good day and one bad day. Last year,
Saturday was good and Sunday was bad. This year, Saturday was bad and Sunday was
good. My results this year are about 2%-3% lower than last year in QSOs, mults
and total score. That's the second straight year of declining scores: 2001 was
5.9M, 2002 was 5.85M and this year was 5.75M. The spots are disappearing.
- Both years, it was a two-and-a-half band contest. Last year my top two bands
were 15m and 20m, with about 1000 QSOs each, followed by 40m with 500 QSOs. This
year 20m and 40m were in the 1000 QSO range and 15m was down around 500 QSOs. I
was lucky to do that many Qs on 15m. The band didn't open at all to Europe on
Saturday morning and I had only about 100 contacts on that band going into
Sunday AM, when the band opened to Europe and I was able to rip off about 400
contacts. As K5ZD has noted, the vast majority of these contacts barely moved
the S-meter.
Propagation played right into the strength of my station: 20m and 40m. While my
antennas on these bands are modest, they're the best I have. A few weeks before
the contest I did an analysis of top-ten results from W1 in CQWW CW and ARRL DX
CW since 1980. The results clearly showed that 10m is likely to provide a small
percentage of overall QSOs from this point on. Based on WPX and IARU results for
the past couple of years, it was also clear that 10m wouldn't be a big factor
from W1 in those contests this year. For that reason, I took down the 6-el 10m
monobander that's on a 50-ft AB-577 military mast and put the Force-12 C3E
tribander back in the system. Actually, it was more complicated: I moved the
5-el 15m monobander to the 10m mast and put the C3E on the 15m mast. The idea
was that the flexibility of the tribander would far outweigh any additional gain
provided by the 10m monobander. I'm happy to report that the tribander made a
big difference in flexibility. I used it a lot for instant South switching and
was able to "stack" it with one of the two monobanders to widen the beam. That
was great for working JA and EU at the same time.
Over the past few years it's become clear to me that my best strategy is to work
EU, EU, EU and more EU, especially on 40m. While US stations bring new prefixes,
there's no substitute for the 6-point QSOs you can get on 40m or the 3-point
QSOs on the higher bands. The proof of the strategy is that I have the fewest
QSOs and multipliers of the four top claimed scores (so far) and have the second
highest score (so far). It definitely helped that I added a 40-2CD at 75' this
year. Although the old 4-square is still available, I used the yagi almost
exclusively and did about twice the number of 40m QSOs as last year.
My biggest problem this year was being sick throughout the contest. I took a
three hour nap Friday afternoon and woke up feeling awful, with dry cough,
congestion, headache, queasy stomach, etc. I don't know what it was, but I got
sicker and sicker as the contest progressed. I felt horrible all day Saturday,
and only slightly better Sunday. Unfortunately, I had to catch an early plane
for Seattle Monday and took the redeye back on Wednesday morning. I still
haven't caught up on sleep and am still a little sick.
Even feeling awful, there were a lot of times during this contest that I was "in
the zone", especially on Saturday. For some reason my CW copy was about the best
it's been. Maybe I'm finally learning all those European contest calls. For the
first time I was able to pick out stations I wanted to work in pileups, not just
the loudest guy. Many times I was able to grab the weak 6-pointer or new prefix
out from the crowd and work that station first. It was really thrilling to get
into a groove doing this.
I was a little worried after the first hour because I only had 94 QSOs on 40m. I
thought it should have been well over 100. On the other hand, compared with 134
Qs on 20m in the first hour last year, I actually scored substantially more
points in the first hour this year. I was fairly happy with about 500 Qs in the
first 5 hours, all on 40m and the vast majority with 6-point EU stations. I
continued to work 40m in the 0500z and 0600z hours because there was no EU
sunrise opening on 20m. Things really slowed down during the 0600z hour, so I
slept from 0700z-1100z. When I got back on, the rate on 20m was over 100/hr,
which made me wonder if I had missed part of the opening during the 0900z and
1000z hours. Propagation programs had suggested an early opening on 20m, but I
wasn't sure enough to give up sleep time for it. I'm curious if anyone in W1 had
high rates during those hours on Saturday. I did work the 0900z and 1000z hours
Sunday morning, but they didn't provide much action.
Almost all of Saturday from 1100z to 2200z was spent on 20m, with the exception
of 100 or so contacts on 15m. As the day wore on, I began to sense that my score
would be pretty good. My serial number seemed to be higher than just about every
station I worked, and I knew the 6-pointers on 40m would help a lot. Knowing
that I was doing well is probably what kept me going through the sickness and
fatigue.
One of the highlights was the JA opening on 20m Sunday morning. I was able to
work about 100 JAs during the 1100z and 1200z hours, grabbing about 80 new
prefixes -- while working EU at the same time! This was followed by the
aforementioned 15m opening that provided another 400 Qs.
The end of the contest was slow, like last year. I wonder if anything can be
done to boost participation in WPX?
My narrow lead over NU6W should be wider. I screwed up my break time
calculations and ended up losing about a half hour of operating time. After
operating for a few minutes after my last break, I realized that I had taken 11
hours and 30 minutes of off time and had only 30 minutes left. Since minimum
break time is 60 minutes, I would have to lose an additional 30 minutes to take
a break. I considered just stopping 30 minutes early but wasn't sure if that
would be legal. A few years ago I remember a well-known contester had some
technical difficulties and didn't start the contest until 00:30. He contended
that the 30 minutes was not a break -- he just started the contest late. Since
he was on no more than 36 hours, he felt this was legal. I don't know what the
log checkers did with that one, but I figured that if it was legal for him, it
would be legal for me to let the last 30 minutes dribble off the end of the
contest. However, being unsure I played it conservative and took an hour-long
break. Thus, I lost 30 minutes that could have been used to stretch my
razor-thin lead over Dan.
My log also shows another 30 minutes lost in non-break off time (bathroom and
kitchen runs.) I've been able to cut that down over the years, but should cut it
out entirely. Maybe I should have used cut numbers...
All in all, a great contest, if something of an Ironman experience. WPX has
always been one of my favorite contests. Maybe by the time the W1 big guns
return I'll have better antennas :-)
73, Dick WC1M
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