CQWW WPX Contest, SSB
Call: NV1N
Operator(s): N1UR
Station: N1UR
Class: SOAB LP
QTH: VT
Operating Time (hrs): 36
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160: 47
80: 194
40: 202
20: 832
15: 162
10: 13
------------
Total: 1450 Prefixes = 669 Total Score = 2,211,045
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
I had a simple goal for this year?s WPX contest. Beat last year?s score despite
probable worse conditions. I also knew that I continue to learn how to truly
work this contest. It isn?t the same as the CQ WW and ARRL DX contests where
EU, EU, EU is the strategy for most of the contest. For 2 reasons: EU is too
busy working each other for some of the contest and there are too darn many USA
prefixes to ignore despite the 1 point contact value of US QSOs. This
realization leads to some interesting decisions during the contest.
I had everything working for the contest. My rotor had been swapped out and was
fully functional. All antennas working fine. Conditions seemed fairly okay for
the start, especially for low sunspot conditions.
Right out of the box I decided that I would run on 20M into US and hopefully JA.
There was no JA but the US was coming through fine with a 80 rate in the first
hour. 20M started dropping off quickly here and there weren?t many EU listening
up yet on 40M so it was off to 80M for more US runs. It is hard for an EU, EU,
EU guy to be running 80M US at 02Z but it felt like the right thing to do. I
even ran 160M US for a while around 04Z at decent rate of 60 ? 70 an hour. I
was able to start picking up EU on 40 and 80M at the EU sunrises. Took an off
time at 07Z and felt fairly good about the first night vs. 2005.
The morning started as 20M EU around 1045Z. I was mostly S & P but at a healthy
60 rate until around 1130Z when I could finally start running EU on 20M. The
rate meter kicked up to 150 and hour pretty quick but didn?t last there for
long. Very quickly EU was filling up all over the place and maintaining a run
frequency was getting very hard. Had to move often. 15M started showing signs
of life by 1330Z but was very spotty and never really opened up to be runable.
I made many attempts during the 14 ? 17Z hours to run EU on 15 to no avail. I
was concerned with dropping rate to EU on 20M and eventually turned the beam to
the US (that hurts to say) to keep the rate up. The mults were plentiful but
the 1 pt Qs were not helping the score.
The late afternoon saw an unsuccessful JA run attempt but a nice 40M EU run
starting at around 22Z. The second evening was A LOT better to EU on 40 and 80
in general and I felt that I was doing a nice job filling up the rate with 6 pt
Qs (50ish rate) and also some mults. Took another off time around 06Z.
Started up again around the same time Sunday morning as Saturday but this time
combing 40 and 80 for SA and Pacific mult prefixes with some success. 20M
started up well around 11Z but quickly got very crowded with EU with nowhere to
go and run without someone yelling at you. I found myself very quickly thinking
about actually turning the beam to US at 15Z (hard to imagine) even though the
band was wide open to EU. I tried doing something that I have never done before
as a low power station, splitting power between the EU and US beams while
running. I was hesitant since I knew that I was only putting 50W into each
antenna. But it worked??I was actually running both US and EU by splitting 100W
into the 2 antennas and holding a 60 ? 70 rate. I finally shifted to all EU by
18Z to work the remaining opening. Periodically trying 15M runs with very
little success despite decent second radio S & Ping into EU on 15M. Then it was
to SA on 20 for a bunch of stations still needed on 20 but not a whole lot of
new mults. Finally got some needed JA at 22Z on 20M (around a dozen stations)
as well as a couple of nice Alaska mults. The end of the contest was 40M to the
US primarily but did work a few new EU stations off the back of the beam.
I feel that 40M is gradually transforming itself. More EU stations are showing
up in the 7150 ? 7200 segment. Additionally, I noticed much less EU broadcast
stations in that segment for this contest. I hope that is the beginning of a
vacating trend.
Score was down from last year by about 10%. I had a few fewer Qs and about the
same number of mults. QSO points were the main difference. I was way up on
160, 80, and 40. Up on 20. Way down on 15 and 10. 10 really only had 1
opening to SA around 18Z from hear. Other than that it was a waste.
This is a really interesting contest. It forces you to ?break the mold? of
thinking for a DX contest because of the HUGE number of US mults and the
difficulty in getting attention in EU some of the time. I feel like it will be
a number of years before I truly understand the best way to work this contest.
See you all in WPX CW as NV1N?
Ed N1UR/NV1N
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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