WAE DX Contest, CW
Call: K4XD
Operator(s): K4XD
Station: K4XD
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: Raleigh, NC
Operating Time (hrs): 14
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs QTCs Mults
-------------------------
80: 18 10 12
40: 49 46 20
20: 129 138 34
15: 21 20 13
10: 12 0 7
-------------------------
Total: 229 214 86 Total Score = 95,472
Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club
Comments:
Well, that was fun. I'm enjoying the "leisurely approach" to contesting,
getting up when I feel like it, going out in the yard, working on the pool,
then feeling the itch to see how the bands are and going back to the radio for
an hour or two. I don't know, it's going to be tough getting my head back into
the Fall/Winter Marathons!
Although the WAE seems like a more leisurely pace here. Probably because with
my modest station, I can never hear enough of the weaker stations to get a real
pace going when you can't work domestic stations. For most of the contest my
rate was between 15 and 25/hr. I guess sending QTC's slows things down too.
I used this contest as a platform for working on and testing out my new SO2R
setup. I acquired a used SixPak so I can now put any antenna on either of the
two rigs, one an Icom 756 Pro II, the other a Yaesu FT-857D, which started life
as a backup rig for both the mobile and the base station. It's a capable little
radio, and when I decided to start tinkering with SO2R, it stepped up and said,
"hey, I know I look like a QRP rig, but I can put out 100W, honest!" and it
did. So what do you pay to go from SO1R to SO2R? Let's see, a SixPak relay
box, two ICE bandpass switchable filters, an SO2R switching box (using the
EZMaster here), a couple hundred feet of coax and control cable lines, some
more ICE filters to keep Mother Nature out of the coax and control cables, some
shelves for the desk to hold all this stuff, enough cables behind the desk to
bring the fire marshall to tears... OK, adding it up now... Yikes, that's a lot
of money for 5 to 15% more QSO's! But how can you put a price on an obsession,
er, hobby?
Configuring the EZMaster has been, well, an experience that separates the men
from the boys. I feel about 9 years old. I did manage to get CW working
before the contest, although in the process of rearranging the entire shack
(need to update that QRZ.com photo, oh those were the simple days...), I think
I managed to pull a few wires loose, resulting in some pretty random behavior
at the start of the test. The most laughable was actually right before the
test, when I started a QSO with someone to see how it was working, and promptly
lost my keyboard to RFI. The mouse still worked, limiting my communication to
the macros that were already stored in WinWarbler. I felt like I was having a
conversation where I had been gagged and could only talk by holding up one of
12 cards.
him: "K4XD de XX2XXX, GE OM, NAME HR IS FRED, HOW COPY?"
me: "XX2XX de K4XD 599 001"
him: "K4XD JOLLY WELL THEN, THE STRONG AND SILENT TYPE EH?"
me: "599 de K4XD 73 TU"
him thinking "guess he doesn't speak english"
I resolved the keyboard problem with one of those "I never thought -that- was
connected to -this-" moments by reseating the serial port connector in the back
of the RCS-12 antenna switch. It delivers band data to the antenna switch, and
I guess noise on that line was somehow getting into the system and causing
problems elsewhere.
And so to the radios... I fired up right at 0000 and did some S&P on 20M, and
the theme of the contest, lots of DL stations, started immediately. According
to SH5, 32% of my Q's were from Germany. Hungary was a distant second with
5.9%, Italy with 5.5%, and Romania with 5%.
With 23 Q's on 20M in the first hour, I decided maybe 40M would be running a
bit warmer so hopped down there and bagged another 25 Q's in the second hour.
Well, maybe 80M will be warmer? Hmm, only 15 Q's in the next hour on 80M, using
this time to do a little SO2R between 40M and 80M. Just getting the feel of the
setup and listening to CW in both ears.
I hung up my headphones early, at 0304, and got up early but didn't find any EU
until 1039 as 20M started waking up. Some more S&P, with northern EU stations
in Wales, Belgium, and Norway starting things off with some new mults. At 1114
the DL's re-asserted themselves, and I enjoyed a modest run on 14057 for about
20 minutes. QTC's feel like double-dipping for points, but they sure slow any
momentum you may be building in a run. Things died down at 1201 and I went up
to 15M, wow, nice to see some EU action on 15!
Other fun moments: 10M open (mostly to DL, of course!) Sunday at 1300. Anyone
who has had their ticket more than a couple of years is going to laugh, but I
worked five first ever 10M DXCC countries - drum roll - DL, G, HG, OM and YT.
It's a sign of the sunspot times that I will probably get DXCC on 160M before
10M! 20M Sunday afternoon around 2100 was open nicely, with a fun run on 20M
where I could actually hear most of the stations without asking for 4 repeats!
I'm beginning to understand why the hard core contesters love their stacked
monobanders and Beverage antennas. And finally, I got on 40M with 20 mins left
in the contest and found a hole at 7004. Hmmm, this is prime real estate,
wonder if anyone will even hear me? Yup, they did, and someone spotted me just
to make sure I got swamped with callers. It sounded more like a chorus of
cicadas on a hot July night than Samuel's Morse code, and I did the only thing
I could... wait until the cicadas died down and one or two lone ones chirped.
Gotcha!
Well, that's a big writeup for a small score, but that's just the Yin and Yang
of it... thanks for the EU Q's and CUL...
73,
Rowland K4XD
Icom 756ProII
Yaesu FT-857D
Homebrew hexbeam on a Wibe surplus crankup mast at a whopping 12M
Couple of Cobra Ultralights - linear loaded doublets, they work a treat
WriteLog
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