CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB
Call: VY2PA
Operator(s): W4PA
Station: VY2ZM
Class: SOAB HP
QTH:
Operating Time (hrs): 47
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 492 12 63
80: 690 20 80
40: 821 26 97
20: 2125 29 108
15: 1628 25 97
10: 30 6 22
------------------------------
Total: 5786 118 467 Total Score = 9,416,160
Club: Tennessee Contest Group
Comments:
CQ WW SSB 2005.
I promised K1ZM I?d do a writeup on the contest this weekend. Long writeup
follows. I composed some of this longhand on Monday on the LONG journey home
and typed it up Monday night into Tuesday morning, sleepy. Forgive me in
advance if you think it?s over the top to write a long one like this, but I
really had a fantastic time this weekend and wanted to get it all out to be able
to look back later. . . . .
Long range pre-contest: I started talking via email with Jeff, K1ZM, about the
possibility of operating a contest at his station on Prince Edward Island in
March. After a couple of rounds of emails, I sort of invited myself to have
Jeff invite me up for this year?s CQ WW SSB. Thinking both that Jeff would want
to operate CQ WW CW himself (correct) and that I was already committed to
operate at PJ2T again this year and didn?t want to reneg on going to Curacao.
Jeff said ? you need a callsign. Sure, what, go up to Ottawa and take the VE
ham exam? Conveniently enough, ZM is a Canadian volunteer examiner. I got the
exam trainer for the Canadian exams off the Internet and started cracking the
books for the test. The Basic was easy ? I took it cold and passed. The
Advanced needed a little more work (?What is the Q of this series RLC circuit??)
? the 5 WPM code test, somehow, didn?t concern me too much <smile>. Jeff and I
agreed to get together at Dayton for the exam ? as it turned out I ended up
taking it at the WRTC fundraising table in the Crowne Plaza lobby on a laptop.
Code test passed, written passed, form FAXed from the Crowne Thursday night and
VY2PA was on the RAC website the following Monday morning.
Plane ticket on Air Canada ? can?t get to PEI from Knoxville. (Can?t get to
Curacao either, for that matter). So my usual drive to Atlanta would be
included in the trip to get up there - 4 hours in the car in the wrong
direction.
Short range pre-contest: Several nervous emails exchanged through the weekend
before as the hurricane path is headed for PEI and supposed to hit on the day I
arrive up there (Weds.). Jeff arrives Saturday night and lets me know all is
working at present but we?ll have to watch the hurricane status.
Meanwhile....I am sick as a DOG. My daughter came home sick Friday...by Sunday
I am laid out on the floor of the living room with her, running a fever and
feeling like I have been hit with hammers...splitting headache...can?t sleep.
Add the hell of watching about 10 consecutive hours of children?s television
programming and I was absolutely miserable. Take my daughter to the doctor
first thing Monday a.m., segue into myself going to my doctor right afterward ?
antibiotics prescribed, by Wednesday morning am I feeling like myself again. I
did get a lot of sleep Tuesday night and prior to getting sick had lots of sleep
in the week before, so I figured I could continue to store up sleep and run the
full 48 hours of the contest.
Weds. a.m, drop off my daughter at school at 7:30 a.m. and drive to Atlanta.
Leave the car at the Dunwoody MARTA station, MARTA to the airport, get on the
plane. Sit on the plane waiting to merge into the outbound traffic. Sit. Sit.
I have 90 minutes in Toronto to clear customs and make my connection. The
delay has now whittled that down to 20 minutes, and it?s the last flight of the
night Toronto>PEI. I had decided not to check baggage to be able to adjust if
needed and I was really glad I hadn?t. I got off the plane, made it through
customs in about 1 minute, got on the terminal tram to make the connection, off
the tram, run through the airport to the gate....my anxiety level has now
ratcheted up...flight to PEI delayed 30 minutes. Whew. Borrowed a cell phone,
made a call that I?d be on time to Jeff, relax.
Weather at PEI is terrible ? wind is howling at 50 MPH, rain blowing sideways,
40 degrees...we get to the house and Jeff parks parallel to the house into the
wind, having learned that opening the doors in the wind off the Atlantic will
result in everything in the car not nailed down blowing off into the woods
beyond.
I already am getting a sense of what I am in for up there in the car with Jeff.
Jeff has a tape in the car stereo on the way to the house ? ?Hey, listen to
this recording of 160 I made yesterday.....? ? I listen, some static, and hear a
G3 in CW calling CQ kind of S3 or S4. My reaction: yeah, Jeff? You can hear
a weak G3 station on 160. Huh?
ZM: That?s at 1720 Zulu. 4 hours before local sundown. Broad daylight at
both ends of the path.
Me: Oh. (and thinking....shut up and listen, idiot. Homeboy wrote the book,
literally, on 160 meter DXing)
This was followed up by a Friday morning trip into town. Jeff says ?listen to
this? ? and punches up 660 WFAN in New York on the car radio. At 11 o?clock in
the morning. The sun is low in the sky that far north, the absorption is low,
so you can clearly hear a NYC radio station on the car radio 800 miles to the
southeast in the middle of the day. Unbelieveable.
Thursday the weather was still sort of bad and I spent much of the day playing
with the radios, trying to run some Europeans and to get a feel for both
operating SO2R on SSB and for using CT again. It?s going to be interesting to
see if I can pull out the callsigns in the QRM while hunting down mults on the
second radio while using a relatively unfamiliar software package to log the
contest. I?ve also never done a fullblown SO2R contest as a single op on SSB,
nor operated an SSB contest as a DX station ever ? so this was going to be
completely new on a couple of levels for me. Jeff has everything set up with a
WXOB controller and CT and didn?t want to risk changing anything pulling cables,
etc. I told him after spending many years as a perennial guest op I really
don?t have a ?style?, I just kind of adapt myself to whatever is going on at the
station I am operating at (unless I really don?t like something, but there was
nothing at ZM that I felt I couldn?t live with, so fine). Friday was visiting
Charlottetown for lunch, doing some low grade tourist stuff like taking
pictures, looking at houses and the golf course and just sightseeing the island.
Contest is due to start at 9 PM Atlantic time. Got a couple of hours of
restless sleep and then started bouncing off the walls antsy for the contest to
begin. Eating dinner with Jeff 45 minutes before the start he?s saying ?Relax ?
take it easy, cool it!?- but I am tapping my fingers on the table, fidgeting - I
always get like this the hour leading into the start of the contest.
The log file is ready....I?m tuning around before the contest, Jeff is going to
observe. He?s got a Y connector plugged into the SO2R audio box so he can
listen with headphones, too. He was serious about wanting to listen in to see
what I would do ? I?m guessing he was in the shack with the headphones on about
25 hours of the contest, mostly through the night both nights listening to me
run the low bands. No distraction really, he was sitting in a chair back
behind me, and we were joking around about some of the things he heard myself
and others did during the contest during a few of the slower moments on the low
bands.
0000Z: Right before the start, 20 meters wasn?t sounding too good and 40 is a
huge mess, so I start on 80 calling above 3.800 and listening on 3.659...then
3.664. First hour on 80 was 92 plus picking off contacts on the second radio
for a 102/hr to start. Continued the same into the second hour.
Jeff had said in our strategy discussions pre-contest that his experience had
been into the third or fourth hour might be a good time to try running on 160 if
the signal strengths were good. The were numerous Europeans at S9+20 with some
even louder in the 0200Z hour....
0235Z: YM0T in TA/zone 20 is S9 here on 160 ? I decide it?s time to try it.
1.812 is open, call CQ, first caller in the log is W3LPL then SM6CMU and I?m off
and running. Tremendous signals from Europe on 160 and I mean I AM OFF AND
RUNNING = 124 contacts on 160 in the next 30 minutes into log. Mostly Europeans
with some USA east coast mixed in. It?s 20 frickin? meters on 1.812.
INCREDIBLE. The run will end at 0335Z with 200 calls into the log in one hour
on 160 including moving VP9I to 80 and picking off 6Y2Z on 3.674 on the second
radio during the run. OK, I can manage to work at least something on the second
radio at a 200/hr rate on SSB so I guess my concerns about being able to operate
SO2R on SSB weren?t valid....!
...and it?s on tape. Jeff has a tape recorder (mentioned earlier) hooked to the
radios. When I went to 160 he went around behind the console, plugged in the
recorder and let ?er fly. I need to run the tape through Polderbits and get it
posted onto the net as .wav files at some point.
Continuing into the night, solid runs alternating between 40 and 80 including a
125 hour combining contacts on 160, 80, 40, 20 through the 0700Z hour.
Waiting for sunrise at 1045Z?.hearing and working a few weak Europeans before
sunrise and then like it?s flicking a lightswitch 20 meters suddenly breaks wide
open at 1018Z. I?m on 14.129 ? 121 Q?s in the next 42 minutes for a 180/hr
rate. Rolling into the 1100Z hour it?s continuing steady at that pace. I am
listening to 15 meters every few minutes waiting for the breakout point ? at
1152Z the EU signals are BOOMING and I roll over to 21.126 and start cranking it
out as fast as possible (an aside ? this is all on tape as well ? the 20 meter
run into the band change and the 15 meter run). 1200Z-1300Z is a 254/hr
followed by 243/hr from 1300-1400Z, still able even at a 243/hr pace to pick off
two multipliers on 20 meters on the second radio. . . . then a 207/hr and
sliding back down meters at 1516Z. Pace on 20 is 200/hr (157 Q?s in 44 mins.)
followed by a 209 hour...left the second radio alone until the rate went back to
a more manageable 140/hr at 1700Z ? 139 on 20 meters plus 9 Q?s picked off the
second radio.
Another 208 hour from 1900-2000 with 200 on 20 on the main radio and 8
multipliers picked off of 15 and 40.
2000Z: the segue to 40. Do I stay or do I go now? It?s a full hour before
sundown at 2100Z but the band is wide open. Split transmitting high isn?t
working, so I just find a hole and brute force clear it off of Europeans and
start a 133 hour plus 8 mults worked on 10 meters and a 131 hour to follow.
Very hard to pull out the the callsigns in the ridiculous QRM level on that
band.
...and then...it gets kinda...SLOW. The best hour of the next 6 would be
2200-2300Z at an 85 rate, followed by getting down into the 50?s and 60?s per
hour. Just can?t seem to get anything going on the low bands, so moving around
alternating CQ?s, hunting mults, thinking about what I am doing.
0000Z: Assessment time. Score is 4,400,000 ? which according to the K5ZD
projected score method of (halftime score x 2 plus 10%) equals an estimated
9,680,000 final score. I feel good. I?ve been eating, I feel like I know what
I am doing. I?m in control. I?m going ALL THE WAY ? 48 STRAIGHT.
0300Zish. Not. I?m feeling kind of bad. I?ve learned enough about myself from
doing 48 straight to know when I am losing it. It?s when I start seeing blue
and purple spots on the radios from staring at the computer monitor and my depth
perception gets out of whack. It?s happening. I catch myself micronapping ?
pressing F1 and then falling asleep for a few seconds before rousing myself and
continuing. The rate will fall to 40/hr at 0300-0400 as I am frazzled and
trying to decide what to do.
Meanwhile...Jeff is in the shack, right behind me with headphones on. I look
over a couple of times and he?s nodded off asleep as well. At one point he asks
me if I am going to take a nap and I mumble that I?m not and I keep
calling....but I am already trying to weigh the benefit of a short snooze.
0300Z is well earlier than I usually start to fall apart, it?s usually around
0800Z or so.
I rouse myself a little and manage to roll off two 100+ hours on 40 meters until
0600Z but realize I am crashing hard and quickly. There is a 16 minute gap in
the log from 0644-0700Z as I can?t find anyone to work and then fall asleep for
about 5 minutes sitting in the chair. I continue CQing on 40 after 0700Z but
decide if I have any chance of being coherent later I need to get up and take a
nap. A break of 1 hour and 15 minutes from 0800Z into the 09Z hour is taken.
Sleep an hour, take a shower, drink a Fruitopia Kiwi-Strawberry and I?m back in
front of the rigs at 0920Z. It?s a slow hour as I am groggy, only half awake
and log just 9 contacts between 0920 and 1000Z.
1018Z: Yup, at the exact same minute as on Saturday morning, the propagation
light switch on 20 meters goes ?BOING!? and we are off and running again. This
time I?m at 14.145 and the rate is a respectable 120/hr with 80 Q?s there in the
next 42 minutes.
1139Z: Show me the money ? as with Saturday I am flipping across 15 on the
second radio waiting for when I think the breakout point is and at 1139Z I hit
F1 on 21.119 and 4Z4DX is the first Sunday Q logged there. Rate meter goes
zango with a 255/hr pace in the next 21 minutes as 85 more QSO?s are in the log.
This is followed by hours of 211 and 186 ? getting harder at that pace with
being tired to pick off the second radio but I still manage to line up and work
a few more. Once the rate drops back into the 130?s after 1800Z the second
radio become a lot more manageable ? able to roll off several multipliers per
hour on radio #2 at that speed.
Show Me The Money II: Fastest sustained rate of the weekend will happen in a
burst on 20 meters during the 2000 and 2100Z hours Sunday. 20 was getting
slower into Europe and I had spent nearly all of my time on 15 and 20 meters
running Europeans below the USA phone band. I?d be fresh meat if I found a spot
on 20 in the USA segment and with signals peaking at 40 dB over 9 from the US
east coast it seemed like a good time, so . . .
I find an open spot at 14.241 and CQ ? W9VA is #1 on the run and 254 contacts,
almost all USA are in the log in the next 52 minutes for a rate of 293/hr over
the period. Wish I?d got this one on tape, but Jeff was not in the shack and I
couldn?t go around the back of the rigs to plug in the tape recorder. Alas.
Then, just like that, the contest was over. 40 meters was a total disaster at
the end with wall to wall loud Europeans after local sundown at 2100Z, just
couldn?t get a run going either simplex or running split and the final two hours
of the contest would be 45/hr into the log, mostly picking off the loud
Europeans CQers I?d ignored, calling CQ some more on 160 and hunting for some
more last minute multipliers to add to the score total.
Biggest laugh during the contest was ON4WW calling in on 160 in the last hour of
the contest ?VY2PA from ON4WW....is that your real callsign?? To which I
replied ?Yes?. ON4WW: ?You are very very loud in Europe and I am working below
you can you move up a little?? ? Jeff and I both burst out laughing. Yeah, a
200 hour into Europe on 160 on Friday night, that?s loud alrighty....but yeah,
I?ll move up some. <big smile>.
Wrap up: Claimed score 9,416,160. 5786 Q?s, 118 zones, 467 countries.
Hopefully should be good for a top 10 world finish ? we?ll have to see. The
Canadian CQ WW SSB single op record (held by Jeff, set in 2003) is 8.84 million,
so whether of not I?ll get past that line will come down to log checking.
Thoroughly enjoyed my first time running a serious SO2R SSB contest operation
and the first time to ?be the DX? on SSB as well. I don?t think it will be the
last time.
Thanks: Jeff Briggs, K1ZM, was absolutely a great host for this contest effort.
Talk about selfless. He drove up to PEI from New York, made sure everything
was ready to go for me, got me roundtrip to/from the airport including getting
up at 4 a.m. Monday and only asked to be able to listen in while I was on the
air. With 50 years of DX and contest operating experience, there was a lot of
solid advice provided to me before the contest. We basically had a running
conversation for all of Thursday and Friday that I would call the theory of
radio contesting ? the advice he provided was right on the money. The VY2ZM
station plays awesome. I mean ? awesome. Jeff, please invite me up there
again. Please, by all means. I?m a radio junkie and I GOTTA HAVE IT. Please!
Coda: Met KJ6Y and K6LA on the plane back from Charlottetown and discussed
Ken?s VY2TT station and operation on PEI for the hour on the way to Montreal?.I
think. I was really tired and I was rambling on and on about contests, Bill
Fisher?s death and how I suck at the stock market but it?s kind of a mish-mash.
Ken was probably trying to keep a straight face listening to me. My trip home
was 19 hours door to door, up at 4 a.m. Atlantic time Monday, flying PEI>
Montreal> Toronto> Atlanta...MARTA...4 hours of driving, home at 10 p.m. Monday
night.
73 to all. See you from PJ2T for CQ WW CW in four weeks.
Scott Robbins, W4PA
BREAKDOWN QSO/mults VY2PA CQ WORLD WIDE DX CONTEST
HOUR 160 80 40 20 15 10 HR TOT CUM TOT
0 ..... 92/36 5/7 5/10 ..... ..... 102/53 102/53
1 12/16 84/7 . 5/7 . . 101/30 203/83
2 108/24 31/2 5/8 4/4 . . 148/38 351/121
3 93/9 41/7 1/1 . . . 135/17 486/138
4 . 83/5 13/13 . . . 96/18 582/156
5 23/0 23/2 14/10 . . . 60/12 642/168
6 50/9 39/2 6/6 . . . 95/17 737/185
7 21/5 97/9 5/4 2/2 . . 125/20 862/205
8 2/2 10/11 38/6 1/2 ..... ..... 51/21 913/226
9 3/4 18/4 22/2 4/5 . . 47/15 960/241
10 . 1/1 4/5 124/35 . . 129/41 1089/282
11 . . . 179/14 34/16 . 213/30 1302/312
12 . . . . 254/26 . 254/26 1556/338
13 . . . 2/2 241/9 . 243/11 1799/349
14 . . . 1/1 206/9 . 207/10 2006/359
15 . . . 157/10 25/1 . 182/11 2188/370
16 ..... ..... ..... 209/5 ..... ..... 209/5 2397/375
17 . . . 139/7 9/15 . 148/22 2545/397
18 . . 1/0 78/3 43/13 . 122/16 2667/413
19 . . 7/4 200/5 1/1 . 208/10 2875/423
20 . . 133/23 . . 8/10 141/33 3016/456
21 . . 131/7 2/2 . . 133/9 3149/465
22 1/1 58/1 20/0 6/4 . . 85/6 3234/471
23 . 14/2 50/8 . . . 64/10 3298/481
0 17/2 30/0 9/1 ..... ..... ..... 56/3 3354/484
1 62/1 5/1 4/4 . . . 71/6 3425/490
2 37/1 2/1 28/0 . . . 67/2 3492/492
3 26/0 13/0 1/0 . . . 40/0 3532/492
4 . 2/3 102/5 . . . 104/8 3636/500
5 . 2/1 107/0 . . . 109/1 3745/501
6 7/0 1/0 6/1 . . . 14/1 3759/502
7 . 1/0 42/2 8/2 . . 51/4 3810/506
8 ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... 3810/506
9 . 2/1 7/5 . . . 9/6 3819/512
10 . 2/2 16/0 80/1 . . 98/3 3917/515
11 . . . 85/1 75/2 . 160/3 4077/518
12 . . . . 211/0 . 211/0 4288/518
13 . . . . 185/9 1/2 186/11 4474/529
14 . . . 1/0 151/3 2/1 154/4 4628/533
15 . . . . 151/3 . 151/3 4779/536
16 ..... ..... ..... 116/3 23/1 ..... 139/4 4918/540
17 . . . 182/3 . . 182/3 5100/543
18 . . . 136/3 3/3 . 139/6 5239/549
19 . . . 112/5 9/8 13/10 134/23 5373/572
20 . . . 147/1 3/3 6/5 156/9 5529/581
21 . 25/0 . 138/0 4/0 . 167/0 5696/581
22 . 10/1 35/1 . . . 45/2 5741/583
23 30/1 4/1 9/0 2/0 . . 45/2 5786/585
DAY1 313/70 591/89 455/104 1118/118 813/90 8/10 ..... 3298/481
DAY2 179/5 99/11 366/19 1007/19 815/32 22/18 . 2488/104
TOT 492/75 690/100 821/123 2125/137 1628/122 30/28 . 5786/585
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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