CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW
Call: WC1M
Operator(s): WC1M
Station: WC1M
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: NH
Operating Time (hrs): 42
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 52 12 43
80: 405 16 70
40: 466 26 91
20: 1345 36 114
15: 143 20 68
10: 23 9 20
------------------------------
Total: 2434 119 406 Total Score = 3,642,450
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
Antennas:
160M - trapped vee @65'
80M - delta loop @75', trapped vee @65'
40M - 40-2CD @72', 4-square
20M - 4el SteppIR @75', C3E @50'
15M - 4el SteppIR @75', C3E @50', 5-el @50'
10M - 4el SteppIR @75', C3E @50'
580' beverage aimed 20-degrees
All yagis on separate tubular towers (no vertical stacks)
Equipment:
Orion + Alpha 87A, FT-1000D + Acom 2000A, Writelog, TopTen band decoders and
switches.
As K1GQ recently said, it's the "King of Contests".
Although this year's conditions were challenging at times, the huge level of DX
activity made for a fantastic ride once again. Thanks to all for the Qs and
mults, especially those stalwart souls who spent time, money and effort on
DXpeditions. There's nothing quite like the thrill of a double mult calling in,
stumbling across a rare one before the packet crowd descends, or dropping a
well-timed first call into a massive pileup and walking away with the prize. No
other contest comes close.
Congrats to K5ZD for a mind-boggling score. Last serious all-out single-op
effort? I hope not! Top-notch competition makes us all strive harder for better
performance. You're way too young to retire, Randy. Besides, you have to give us
newbies more time to beat you ;-)
My score and rank are about the same as last year, with the score being somewhat
higher due to slightly better conditions. Not too surprising since I haven't
changed any antennas or equipment this year. First time in seven or so years
that everything has stayed the same from one year to the next. Hopefully that
won't be the case next year (see below.)
There's a lot going on in family life right now, not the least of which is
preparation for a much-anticipated trip to Eastern Siberia (UA0D) in 10 days.
Nevertheless, I was psyched for the contest and was as well prepared as I've
ever been. Fixed my broken 80m delta loop for the umpteenth time a month or so
earlier and pulled the beverage out from under a massive tree that fell on it
during one of the wild wind/snow storms this fall. My health is good, weight
still under control, got lots of sleep in the weeks leading up to the contest
and was finally efficient at putting together contest meals that kept me going
without losing time in front of the radio. Even managed a solid three hour nap
Friday afternoon.
A couple of months ago, propagation predictions for the CW weekend called for
higher flux than we had for the SSB weekend, but it didn't turn out that way.
The big spike in flux from a large sunspot group was already falling off rapidly
by Wednesday/Thursday and the short-term forecasts were for solar flux of about
80. The good news was low geomagnetic activity, promising very good conditions
on the low bands.
I had high hopes for 40 when the contest started, but to my dismay it was almost
identical to the mess we had the first hour last year, when I turned in a paltry
23 Qs. This time I knew that instead of trying to run I had to S&P. I studied
K5ZD's 2004 log before the contest and knew that's what he had done when faced
with similar conditions last year. While I only managed 32 Qs this year, the
number of mults was much higher -- 41 versus only 21 last year. Most of the
mults came from 40, but I picked up quite a few on 20 and 80 on the second
radio.
Obviously, my S&P rate was terrible. As the contest progressed, I became more
and more aware that this may be my biggest weakness as a contester. I can run at
high rates, but my S&P rate is awful. Some of the best ops can do 75-80 per hour
or more S&Ping (no packet), and I often hear contesters talking about S&Ping at
60 per hour or so. But the best I've been able to do is maybe 40-50 per hour,
and I don't do that kind of rate very often. When I'm mult-hunting, the rate
drops down to 30-40 per hour or less. Not sure why I'm so slow, but it's
probably related to my history as a DXer, where I learned to tune slowly, listen
carefully and not give up easily. Also, I've always loved running and probably
haven't spent anywhere near enough time honing my S&P skills. This time I played
around with tuning faster and experimented with leaving the filters wide open
while tuning so I could catch a wider swath of potential mults above and below
where I was tuning. I have a lot more work to do on this.
Poor S&P rate is half the reason why my mults are often lower than the rest of
the pack (the one contest where they're not lower is WPX, which is a run contest
-- the mults come to you.) The other reason my mults are low is that I'm not
loud enough when running. Low antennas, no stacks and long runs of plain-old
coax are the reason for that. This will soon change (see below.)
Probably should have tried running 80 the first or second hour, but thought it
was too early. Instead, I got into S&Ping and racking up as many mults on 160,
80 and 40 as I could. This was great for mults, but terrible for Qs. Didn't
start running until about 0530z, when I racked up 75 Qs on 80 in about an hour.
Can't recall now whether I tried to run 80 earlier and couldn't get anything
going. My impression was the Europeans weren't hearing me well and were mostly
working each other. But it's possible that I wasn't patient and didn't CQ long
enough to let a run get going. This highlights another mistake I tend to make.
More on that when we get to the high bands...
Unlike 40, conditions on 80 and 160 were quite good. Pulled in a lot of mults on
both bands. This was definitely the best I've ever done on 160: 12 zones and 43
countries. I continue to be amazed at how well I do on top band relative to
bigger single-op stations. I guess one equalizer is my beverage -- I probably
hear about as well as anyone else. But all I've got on transmit is a trapped
80/160 inverted vee with the apex at 65 feet facing E-W. I'm amazed they can
even hear me in Europe, but they do! I may have spent too much time on 160 the
first night -- my mults on 80 are low by about 10-15, likely from not trying to
run early and not spending enough time S&Ping that band.
EU sunrise was disappointing -- still couldn't run on 40. So, as mentioned, went
down to 80 and ran there for an hour or so. The rate was pretty much gone by
0630z and I returned to S&Ping. The rate dropped down pretty low in the 7z, 8z
and 9z hours, but picked up another 40 mults. By 10z I was tired and decided
that a little sleep would help me a lot for the morning runs. Napped for 45
minutes and ate a small breakfast of yogurt and hardboiled eggs.
By 11z I was back in front of the radio S&Ping the loud EU stations that were
starting to come in on 20. Things took off about 1145z and I spent the next 5
hours or so running about 450 stations on 20, with a peak hour of 145 at 1600z.
Listened to 15 on the second radio, but it seemed like the band wasn't open to
EU enough to run. I kept hearing KC1XX CQing 15 with no takers, so I continued
to exploit the fine rate on 20. S&Ped a few loud EU stations on the second
radio, but that was it. At 1425z, I jumped to 15 and CQed while S&Ping 20m mults
on the second radio. But ended up with only 14 Qs CQing 15 versus 21 Qs S&Ping
20. So I went back to running 20 and immediately returned to a high rate.
All the top-ten stations worked about 300 or more Qs on 15, while I only worked
143. Half those Qs came from an EU run I got going in the 15z hour on Sunday.
Seems to me that I must have missed a run on Saturday morning, but I don't
recall whether I tried CQing on 15 in the 13z and 16z hours. The rate certainly
wasn't good from 1430z-1530z. As I mentioned when discussing 80, I think one of
my mistakes is not periodically trying to CQ bands that don't seem open on the
second radio and, when I do, not being patient enough to let a medium-rate run
get going. It's awfully hard to leave a band when the 10-minute rate meter is
hovering around 180/hr!
Last year I missed a brief opening to EU on 10, and this year I think I missed
a brief opening on 15. It's either that, or my antennas are so paltry that I'm
not hearing what the top guys are hearing. I find it hard to believe that my
4-el at 75 feet and my 5-el at 50 feet can't run at all when K5ZD can run on his
5/5 at 66'/33'. My rate should be lower, but not non-existent. Hopefully I'll
soon have an opportunity to test that (see below.) Anyway, I'm down 10-15 mults
on 15 from the top ten, and it's almost certainly from not finding a run
Saturday morning.
The rate on 20 dropped off about 1700z, and neither 15 nor 10 was runnable. So I
S&Ped 20/15/10 for the next three hours. Only picked up 150 Qs and 60 mults.
I had picked up only four second radio mults on 10 while running 20 earlier in
the morning, but at 17z things opened up and I was able to work 18 new mults on
10 to the south. That was by far the best hour of the contest on 10. As it
turned out, all but three of my 10m mults came on Saturday morning. For a
change, I'm not disappointed in my performance on 10 -- it's in line with the NE
top guns. I guess even great antennas can't make 10 open these days. The bad
news is that it's likely we're not at the bottom of the cycle yet. I remember
flux numbers in the low 60s at the trough of the last cycle. 10 doesn't open at
all when that happens. We might be lucky to hear a few weak LUs calling CQ.
Unable to establish a run on 40 at the start of the contest, I figured the band
was opening to EU a lot earlier than usual. Sure enough, got a run going at
2000z. The rate was pretty good at the start, but dropped down to the point
where I only managed about 200 Qs in four hours. Meanwhile, S&Ped 20 and 15 on
the second radio. 20 was productive, but by that time 15 was closing down. Ran
about a dozen JAs on 20 in the 2200z hour.
My rate sheet shows only 5 Qs and 2 mults in the 0000z hour, all in the first
half hour. I have no idea what happened there. I don't remember spending a lot
of time calling a station, having technical problems or taking a break. Whatever
it was, I'm sure I was suffering from sleep deprivation at that point, which is
probably why I can't remember where the half hour went! It's clear, though, that
just like the first night I couldn't run on 40 by 0000z.
>From 0100z to about 0530z I worked 160 and 80, alternating between running and
S&P on 80, and S&P on 160. Never CQed on 160. Probably should have tried it once
or twice, but most of the advice I've read says don't waste your time. Besides,
I didn't want to be working lots of zero-point US stations and a few 2-point VEs
when I could be running 3-pointers on 80. But there were times when EU was
coming in pretty well on 160 and that would have been a good time to try it.
Gotta get more adventurous!
At EU sunrise, around 0530z, 80 took off. Ran off about 200 Qs in about two
hours. At times the 10-minute rate got up to 150, by far the highest rate I've
experience on 80. Not bad for a delta loop with the apex at 75' and a beverage.
Love the low bands when the cycle is near the bottom.
Finally worked KH6, VK and JA on 40 at around 8z, then the rate on all three low
bands dropped off dramatically. I decided to sleep for 90 minutes to get fresh
for the morning runs. I figured to get up at 0930z, have some breakfast, and get
back to the radios in time to scan for OC, VK and JA on 80. That plan went
completely awry because I overslept. Luckily, I opened my eyes just after 1100z,
having slept for three hours, and dashed back to the radios. 20 and 40 were
pretty dead, so I figured I hadn't missed much by sleeping from 0930z-1100z.
This time, 20 didn't get going until 1145z here. Didn't find much to work until
then, except for KH6 on 80. Also found an elusive XE for zone 6 on 160,
experiencing a contest highlight by beating out K1AR. He must have been working
someone on another band :-) Seriously, my low trapped inverted vee does seem to
work!
Once 20 took off, the rate was quite good for 5-6 hours, usually in the 100-150
per hour range. As mentioned, I found the brief opening to EU on 15 at 1500z,
knocking off about 70 Qs and picking up 25 much-needed mults. Went back to 20 at
1600z and ran off another 250 Qs in three hours. S&Ped 20/15/10 for about 45
minutes of the 19z hour.
Once again, 40 opened very early here and I was running EU at high rate by
1945z. That's 2:45 PM local time! Definitely the earliest 40m EU run for me. The
band was solid for about 150 Qs, then the rate began to drop off. I had worked a
JA on 20 on the second radio at 2130z, so I jumped there at 2200z and proceeded
to run about 50 JAs and assorted other stations. Got a DU, but no HL, no BV, no
BY.
Spent the last hour S&Ping for mults. This is favorite hour of CQ WW because it
seems like all the elusive ones show up at the last minute and it's a frantic
race to find as many as I can. Every double mult adds about 10,000 points, which
really pushes up the score.
One of the highlights of the last hour was working R1ANN and VU2PAI in quick
succession on 40. While CQing 20 on the run radio, I found R1ANN on the second
radio running a very small pileup at 7.094. I swung the beam south, worked him
on the first call, swung the beam back NE, opened the filters, and heard the VU2
in a massive pileup down 2 KHz. I got so excited at the prospect of nabbing a
double mult that I fumbled the SO2R keyboard sequence and started CQing on top
of VU2PAI! I quickly tried to hit the ESC key, but my brain and fingers were
completely screwed up and it took a couple of extra seconds to stop my CQ. You
can imagine my amazement when I heard VU2PAI send "WC1M 599 22". Greatly
embarrassed, but immensely pleased, I sent his report and logged the double
mult. My apologies for poor operating practice :) Two minutes later I finally
found ZD8A on 20 for another double mult and my 36th zone on 20. Last QSO of the
contest was 8Q7DV CQing on 40 (I had worked him on 80 but couldn't find him
anywhere after that.)
Although there were moments of sheer hell from sleep deprivation, I generally
felt pretty good the whole way. The first night is always the hardest for me.
Once I get into the second day, it's all downhill. As always, by the end of the
contest I don't want it to stop.
I have mixed feelings about my performance. I think I could have done much
better in the first few hours and could have S&Ped more efficiently throughout
the contest. I'm happy with my CW copy -- I asked for fewer fills this contest
than any I can remember and had much less uncertainty on the difficult calls.
Maybe I'm starting to remember more of the hardcore contest calls. K5ZD's SCP
database keeps getting better and better -- it really helped. Thanks, Randy!
Now for the "see below" part...
After years of trying, I've squeezed as much out of my low "pole" antennas as
I'm going to get. Hopefully by this time next year I'll know just how much the
antennas have limited my performance. On Tuesday before Thanksgiving I filed a
zoning and building permit application for a 100' tower with 15' of mast
sticking out the top. It turns out that our town zoning waives the height limit
for private, non-commercial radio or TV antennas (there's no limit at all!) I've
gotten two permits for smaller towers above the height limit, only one of which
I built, and a local ham got a verbal nod from the town administrator on his
100-footer back before they required paper permits for such things. Zoning has
gotten a lot more touchy in our rapidly growing, anti-growth town in recent
years, but in our preliminary meeting the current zoning administrator said they
will "probably grant the permit." Should know in a few weeks.
For reasons explained before, I can only put up one large tower here. This means
I'll have to go with a stack of multiband antennas for the high bands. The plan
is to put up a stack of 4-el SteppIRs at about 96'/66'/36' and a 2-el 40m beam
at 105'-110'. HFTA says this configuration will rock pretty well, and will be a
substantial improvement over what I have now.
At a minimum, the top SteppIR will be on a TIC ring, and I'm seriously
considering putting the two lower SteppIRs on rings as well. I realize this is
probably overkill (the lower two could be fixed NE), but I'm intrigued by the
possibilities for maximum flexibility for SO2R. The downside, of course, is that
some folks have had reliability problems with those rings (I've been up a local
ham's tower a couple of times to pull his motor to fix a bad pot.)
In addition, I'll have antennas on my rotating 72' crankup and two or three
AB-577s, probably a small tribander and monobanders for 20/15/10. This will be
great for instant South and paralleling with the stack for S&Ping multiple
directions. Should be more than enough flexibility in that setup, but I still
like the idea of all three SteppIRs on rings.
Other ideas for the tower include a better 40m beam than the 40-2CD (a shortened
2-el with full-size elements or maybe a 3-el), a wire 4-square for 80m and
perhaps a 160m shunt feed. I'll have all winter to think about it.
I'm getting psyched, though I'll never live it down (especially with my wife) if
all that new hardware doesn't improve my scores!
Hope my usual long story didn't put anyone to sleep (you can always hit the
delete key.) These ruminations help me think things through and may actually be
useful to someone out there.
Might have to go back to UA0D in February, so not sure I'll see everyone in ARRL
DX CW. Also, not sure if new tower work will keep me off the air for WPX or
IARU. But I plan to be back for CQ WW CW next year. See you then!
73, Dick WC1M
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