CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW
Call: VE7FO
Operator(s): VE7FO
Station: VE7FO
Class: SOAB(A) HP
QTH: Vancouver
Operating Time (hrs): 32
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 10 3 2
80: 133 10 11
40: 144 15 17
20: 332 28 59
15: 218 20 39
10: 168 15 19
------------------------------
Total: 1005 91 147 Total Score = 532,644
Club: British Columbia DX Club
Comments:
Those of you who have been following the disasters and triumphs (not many of
those) of VE7FO may remember that I just returned to the game in 2000. While
the sunspots have been degrading, my station and skills have been improving so
I'm not experiencing any feelings of diminishing fun that others may be. (Well,
I could talk about 1957-58 but that was then and this is now. Besides, to
paraphrase Robin Williams, "If you were an adult in the 50's your now a member
of the 'Can't Remember S...' crowd") In other words, this one has to rank right
up there with my best remembered contest experiences.
No contest newbies this time, just me. They don't do CW. I intend to fix
that.
For a change, I was actually pretty well ready for this one and not going into
it tired and grumpy. Even did a couple of hours' cw practice with the TRLog
Simulator. Had the 10 min rate up to 180 briefly. Don't think I've managed
that before.
I succumbed to the lure of spots in the last ARRL Sweepstakes, as detailed in my
recent SS story. I, as many others before me, found them to be somewhat of a
mixed blessing. Still, there was so much juicy DX floating around in the week
prior to WW and conditions were so good that I decided to go Assisted and maybe
pick up some new ones. Usually not as easy during a contest as in the middle of
the week but you gotta try.
To feed spots into TRLog I need another serial port which I don't have, so I
display them on a 2nd monitor stacked above the main one and, when I see an
interesting spot, I enter it into the TR bandmap. This has the advantage of not
cluttering the bandmap with spots that I'll never hear but has the two
disadvantages of requiring me to key them in and also dealing with the stiff
neck resulting from spending too much time looking up at the 2nd monitor.
Being a spot newbie I wanted a means of checking whether I could even hear a
spot before going to the trouble of entering it into the bandmap. So, I
connected the 706 to the 20-10m R5 vertical that sits right on top of the old
TH3 tribander and plugged the audio into the patch panel so that, whenever I
want, I can feed the 706 audio into my right ear, either instead of the MkV
audio or as well. The plan being that, when I see an interesting spot, I dial
it up on the 706, listen to it, and decide whether or not I think I can make the
Q. If so, I key it into the bandmap. Cumbersome, I know, but haven't had time
to sort out hooking up SO2R.
So, I've done my cw practice, I've got the 706 by my side, and I've printed the
TRLog mult check list. (More on this later.) In some recent discussion on
contesting ethics on the CQ Contest reflector someone said that in the hour or
so before a contest he would troll the bands for the stations who were staking
out their turf and put them in the band map. While some declared that to be
unethical, I thought it was a really good idea, so I spent half an hour doing
that.
When I first got back into contesting, it was often ten or more minutes before I
made my first Q. Wow, Ma, look at me now. By 00:03 I've bagged 3E1, CX9, V31
and PJ2 on 20. Hmm... this is all very well but 10 is open so I go there. Too
bad I didn't think to check 10 when I was filling the bandmap. Oh well, lots of
spots on the cluster. Good thing I went there when I did as the band pretty
well died 15 min later. Did pick up eleven mults, including a very nice 9V1 and
3D2. So, off to 15 for more spot S&P.
15 just died, how am I doing? Hey, I got 23 Qs and 36 mults, including 2 each
of HC8, KH2 and 3D2. What time is it? Oh, 0200Z. Hmm.. last year at this time
I had 74 Qs, 24 mults and no spots. Is this better or worse? Can I devise some
kind of metric which will tell me? In this contest I seem to end up with about
4 times as many Qs as mults so, ignoring the fact that some Qs are worth more
than others, a mult, for me, is worth about 4 Qs. So one could define a Figure
of Merit (FOM) = Qs + 4 x Mults. Last year 74 + 24 x 4 = 140. This year 23 + 36
x 4 = 167. Sounds like this spot chasing approach might work. Off to 20
0400Z 41 Qs and 51 mults. FOM = 245. Last yr at this time FOM = 99 + 4x54 =
315. Hmm... Oh well, probably just a temporary abberation and I'm sure to
catch up to last year shortly.
Somewhere along the way I realized that tuning to spots with the 706, listening
to see if I thought I could make the Q and then transferring the spot to the
bandmap via the MkV was simply too time consuming so I just entered the spots
that made sense without listening to any of them. Besides, I found it pretty
convenient to be able to switch the MkV between the beam and the vertical when,
for example, someone called me from a direction where the beam wasn't pointing
and was pretty weak.
20 is pretty well gone so off to 40.
Spend the rest of the night mostly bouncing between 40 and 80. Something new,
this year, though is an inverted L on 160. It's 30 ft high x 120 ft long with a
radial field confined to a rectangular quadrant of about 15 x 25 ft. I
initially was going to make it 50 ft high but realized that if the free-standing
skinny tower I was using got away from me while I was putting it up it could
drop on the several kV power line running down the opposite side of the lane.
While it should have been an easy decision to not do the 50 ft, it wasn't, as
I'm sure that anyone reading this will understand. I might still do it with
appropriate restraints to ensure that there is no possibility of the tower
falling outside of the property line, either while it's going up or once it's
up.
I've tried the L in various contests and never heard any signals other than in a
160 contest some time ago. Well, this time was different - sort of. Most times
I checked I heard nothing. However, a few times I did make some contacts for a
total of 10 Qs and 5 mults (2 countries and 3 zones - probably the best I can
expect. Overall, the L contributed about 3% to my final score. Makes me wonder
if it was worth the bother of putting it up.)
1230Z 202 Qs and 109 mults for an FOM of 638. Last year at this time had 251
and 91 for an FOM of 615. Looks like I'm 23 Q equivalents ahead of last year.
Off to bed. Now, 1230Z is 0430 local time. This means that I'm not going to be
awake for the morning opening to Eu. In the last hour and a half I did 34 Qs
and 7 mults. Maybe if I'd gone to bed 90 minutes earlier I might have been able
to get up in time for the Eu opening. Then again, I don't do very well at cw if
I'm tired.
1949Z Drag my butt down to the shack and find that 10 is open, sort of. Well,
not that bad as I work, in 10 minuites, VP8, D4B and KP3. (It's really neat to
see all the Antarctic stations getting into contesting. My very first contests
were as a VE8 when I was working on the DEWLine. Won WW cw and phone for VE8 in
'58. Not hard when you're the only one and one of the few Zone 1's to boot.)
Go upstairs and have breakfast which, according to the rate sheet, took an hour.
It always amazes me how, in retrospect, what seemed to be OK at the time now
looks really dumb. Once again, forgot one of the most important things in
successful contesting - plan the work and work the plan. (I just love those
engineering cliches.)
Back to the shack and find a few northern Eu mults on 15. Work them and back to
10.
2100Z 207 Qs and 118 mults for an FOM of 679. Last year I had 293 and 129 for
an FOM of ... oh, oh... 809. Well, last year I went to bed earlier and got up
earlier - will I ever learn? Decide that I'd better start running.
2300Z 326 Qs and 136 mults for an FOM of 870. Last year was 416/147 for an FOM
of ... oh geez... 1004. While I had a 57 and a 62 hour which I consider to be
acceptable, given my modest station and skills, I'm kinda sucking wind here as,
after an all out attempt at running, I'm now 90 Qs behind. (I'd be really happy
if I could do an average 60 Qs an hour for 30 hours.) Then again, last year
during this period I had a 20/18 hour followed by a 103/0 hour. 2300Z is 1500
local time which is getting close to sunset so decide to chase spots before the
mults fade away, perhaps to never reappear.
0100Z 359 Qs and 156 mults for an FOM of 983. Last year was 525/163 for an FOM
of ... this is getting worse... 1177 and I'm 166 Qs behind. Still, at this
stage of the sunspot cycle it's pretty neat to have worked zones 7, 10, 13, 19,
24, 25 and 28, all in the same 2 hours. Then again, when you look at the grey
line as shown in DX Atlas' azimuthal projection, it isn't all that surprising.
0400Z 445 Qs and 175 mults for an FOM of 1145. Last year was 609/172 for an
FOM of 1297 and I'm 164 Qs behind. Switch to 40 and start running.
0600Z 519 Qs and 175 mults for an FOM of 1219. Last year was 629/179 for an
FOM of 1345 and I'm now only 110 Qs behind. Switch to 80 and start running
there.
0800Z 568 Qs and 179 mults for an FOM of 1284. Last year was 650/184 for an
FOM of 1386 and I'm now only 82 Qs behind. Somewhere near the end of this
period I switched back to 40 for a bit of S&P
0832Z 575 Qs and 183 mults for an FOM of 1307. Last year was still 650/184 for
an FOM of 1386 and I'm now only 75 Qs behind. Still S&P on 40. Went to bed in
hopes of getting up early enough to catch the morning Eu opening. Before going
to bed, I printed the mult check list. This shows, for every mult, which ones
you have worked on which band. I went through the list and highlighted each
mult which ought to be easy to work. Referring to this list during the contest
helps you to not be saying after the contest, "I can't believe I didn't work
zone 5 on 40 or P4 on 15!"
1620Z 575 Qs and 183 mults for an FOM of 1307. Last year was 690/197 for an
FOM of 1478 and I'm now 115 Qs behind. Last year I started at 1331, about a 2
hour headstart. Anyway, I'm on 20 S&Ping Eu.
1800Z 612 Qs and 209 mults for an FOM of 1448. Last year was 717/205 for an
FOM of 1537 and I'm now 105 Qs behind. I'm gaining ground again AND managed to
get through the pile on 5U5Z. Run for an hour on 20 then switch to 15 for some
more S&P to fill out the mult check list. Managed to get through the pileup to
6W1RW, an all time new one. Cost me some Qs though.
2000Z 650 Qs and 229 mults for an FOM of 1556. Last year was 759/215 for an
FOM of 1619 and I'm now 109 Qs behind. Need 350 Qs to get past the 1,000
barrier. 4 hours to go. Need a rate of about 90/hr. Hmm.. best hour so far
was 62. Start running on 15.
2100Z 702 Qs and 234 mults for an FOM of 1638. Last year was 801/228 for an
FOM of 1713 and I'm now 99 Qs behind.
2200Z 814 Qs and 234 mults for an FOM of 1750. Last year was 927/228 for an
FOM of 1839. Hey, a 112 hour. How come I'm now 113 Qs behind? Oh, last year
was a 126 hour. Continue running on 15 until the last few minutes of the hour
when I switch to running on 20, right down in key click alley at 14015.
2300Z 869 Qs and 237 mults for an FOM of 1817. Last year was 986/229 for an
FOM of 1902. Oh, oh, I'm now 117 Qs behind. Continue running 20. Need 132 Qs
to get past 1,000. One hour to go. Sigh.
2359Z 1005 Qs and 238 mults for an FOM of 1957. Last year was 1096/229 for
an
FOM of 2012. Wow, what a finish. A 136 hour. A couple of times the rate meter
was 186 which is better than I achieved with the simulator in my practice
session. The best 60 min rate was 140. The UBN will be really interesting and,
I hope, not too depressing reading.
All in all, I was pretty happy with this. An all time new country, which hasn't
happened for quite a while in a contest, but what I'm happiest about is that the
cw skills seem to be improving. I still stumble in pileups, but not as much as
before. Also, the internal SCP database is starting to function. e.g. I don't
need to hear the prefix for LPL, BAI, MYA, KFT, TTT, WMU and a bunch of others
to know what it is. Can't wait for the next one.
In trying to figure out why I was 98 Qs behind last year I found that my op time
for last year was 2 hours longer than this year. Gotta remember to plan next
time.
I've decided that it's time to get more serial ports so I can deal with spots
properly. Did an inventory of my serial port needs - turns out that to do
everything I want I need 9 of them. Hard to believe for such a simple station
but it's true. The 8 port serial card has been ordered.
Thanks for the Qs, everyone and Merry Xmas.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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