CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW
Call: KU5B
Operator(s): KU5B
Station: NX5M
Class: SOSB(A)/40 HP
QTH: Somerville, TX
Operating Time (hrs):
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 0 0 0
80: 0 0 0
40: 921 36 128
20: 0 0 0
15: 0 0 0
10: 0 0 0
------------------------------
Total: 921 36 128 Total Score = 360,800
Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club
Comments:
Phew, am I beat. This was lots of fun though!
First of all, thanks to Bob and family for once again letting me come and spend
the weekend with them. Nice to have both NX5M (SB160) and N5XJ (SB10) in the
shack too for some conversation during down time.
Let me give a big 'ole Texas "Thanks!" to the JA's! You all really came out to
play this weekend and I loved every minute of working y'all. 287 JA made it
into the log.
Knowing I probably wouldn't find a good run frequency at the start, I spent the
first hour or so of the contest S&P for as many mults as I could. Found a decent
run freq and attempted to run...no such luck. I commented to NX5M on Saturday
morning that I must've missed the memo saying 'only EU can CQ this contest'. I
continued S&P for another couple of hours sometimes spending up to 10 minutes
to work somebody.
During the wee hours of Saturday morning, the +20 rain QRN started. According
to all the reliable WX sources, we had pretty close to a 100% chance of rain
the entire weekend. Great. Around 5am, I just completely gave up. I layed out
on the floor with the headphones on and then QRN put me right to sleep. I awoke
an hour later with the noise still there...dang. Bob and I went to the local
Casita for some delicious breakfast tacos around 8am or so and by that time the
rain was coming down ever harder.
This trend continued throughout the day. Around 2pm, I went back into the shack
and was surprised to hear EU quite loud. I worked my first at 2:20pm local. Bob
had told me it would be pretty early but I think I had to hear it for myself.
We dodged a couple of big storms Saturday night that I (unfortunately) think
K5NA and K5NZ got some of. I stayed in the shack the entire night this time
having a bit of success running EU. Around 3am, the JA's and SE Asia really
started to boom in. I then had the tough decision of leaving my run frequency
to grab the mults or trying to work them with VFO-B. Unfortunately, I wasn't
able to run DUAL as I was also recording the entire contest (more on that
later). I tried as best I could to keep a run freq and work the mults but
wasn't very successful. XW1A and HS0ZAR were two of the hardest q's of the
contest. Was pleasantly surprised to be called by a z17 and 9M6AAC (thanks
Ed!).
By the time 7am rolled around, I was exhausted. I made the (dumb, now that I
think of it) decision to leave the radio and come back that night. If I'd stuck
with it a bit longer I believe I'd have even more JA's. Oh well.
The last four hours felt like they'd never end. I really only S&P looking for
new stations and even grabbed a couple more mults in the process.
I came into this contest just hoping to beat the W5 record but exceedingly
passed that goal.
If you would like to hear our QSO, I recorded the entire contest using
Audacity. Unfortunately it doesn't time stamp so it may take a few days for me
to find and cut out the desired audio. In any case, I'm excited to hear some of
the pileups and rare mult Q's again.
Thanks for all the Q's and the fun.
Colin KU5B
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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