WAE DX Contest, CW
Call: VE6CNU
Operator(s): VE6CNU
Station: VE6CNU
Class: Single Op LP
QTH:
Operating Time (hrs): 10
Summary:
Band QSOs QTCs Mults
-------------------------
80:
40:
20: 69 68 50
15:
10:
-------------------------
Total: 69 68 50 Total Score = 6,850
Club: ALBERTA CLIPPERS
Comments:
Let's just say that we could use more sunspots and fewer coronal holes!
I thought things were pretty poor on Saturday and would pick up on Sunday. But
things only got worse. We had a couple coronal holes with the associated faster
solar wind and this caused the K index to reach 5 for several hours and it never
died down sufficiently in the "black RF hole" of Alberta to allow for much in
the way of propagation. I never heard Europe at all on 40m or 80m (passing
thunderstorms and high K index didn't help) and it was a struggle to make
contacts even on 20m. 15m and 10m were completely dead as the MUF map showed
MUFs never reached above 11 MHz for the entire contest! The signals that did
get through on 20m were from the mega stations that haven't heard about MUF.
Fortunately, many of them were able to pull me through the mud and I give them
credit for trying to copy my QTCs.
Canadians like to use hockey analogies, so I felt like I was in the "penalty
box" for most of the contest - just watching the action from a distance. I
heard VE3s and a few other Canadians rapidly exchanging QTCs and calling CQ. I
was strictly S&P and most contacts refrained from asking me for QTCs. When I
asked ON4UN to exchange QTCs he replied, "NOT U"! I'm sure I would have done
the same if the roles were reversed.
This was my first WAE CW (I had done the SSB version before) and figuring out
N1MM was a challenge. It actually worked exactly like it was supposed to and
made things pretty exciting. I can only imagine how much fun it must be for
those who really participate in this contest. I also thought about turning on
the amp and going HP, but it wouldn't have made a bunch more stations suddenly
appear out of the noise. I ended up working pretty much everyone I heard
(except for a few stations who preferred to call CQ at 40 WPM, seemingly
unaware of the ionsopheric effects that made their signals sound like they had
gone through a blender).
Rig: FT-1000MP running 100W
Antennas: Dipole for 80/40m
TH6DXX at 13m for 20m
Logging SW: N1MM
Thanks and CUL,
JERRY VE6CNU
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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