CQWW WPX Contest, SSB
Call: NJ4U
Operator(s): K4EA
Station: K4EA
Class: SOSB15 HP
QTH: GA
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160:
80:
40:
20:
15: 649
10:
------------
Total: 649 Prefixes = 381 Total Score = 460,629
Club: South East Contest Club
Comments:
Before the contest, I reviewed my scores from 2007 and 2008 as they were both
SB15 efforts. In 2007 (some spots) 403 Q's and in 2008 (few spots) 379 Q's.
Following this pattern, for 2009 (no spots), I set a reasonable goal of 350
Q's. I reached that at about 1630z Sunday and then the band exploded to the
west coast.
The only improvement here was the work done Georgia Power. I spent a whole day
with their engineer spotting 8 severe noise sources. Two weeks later, he and a
crew of 4 with two service trucks spent an entire day getting most of it
cleared up. Of the two remaining sources, one was in a flooded field and
another required a special truck that had to be scheduled. Both of those noise
sources are in the direction of Europe. I don't know when they will get to the
field as it is flooded again. The other should be done this week, I hope.
Rain several days leading up to and including Saturday kept the remaining two
sources quiet on Saturday but it got noisy on Sunday. Still a major
improvement.
Friday night started out with strong signals for SA. A quick S&P scan down the
band yielded about 20 Q's in 10 minutes. I then CQed to the west and found the
band still open to the pacific. Several KH6, ZL and VK stations including
VK6ANC were in the log along with many W6's. I got a phone call from my mother
at about 0115z. By the time I got back, the band was closed.
Saturday started out without the usually scatter signals from Europe. Most of
the SA stations were weak, probably because their antennas were pointed to
Europe. African stations started to come in around 1300Z but couldn't get
their attention for the same reason and they had big Eu pilups. Eu started
coming through around 1340 with a S9+ signal from MJ4K. Several highlights
were SV9GPV, YM2W, P33W, P35B, FR/F4EGZ, and SX5P. Mostly G's, ON's, and
southern Eu. By 1500z Eu was gone. Pretty slow the rest of the day with
mostly SA, some NA stations on scatter from the south, and the occasional
African station (3V8SS,TU2CI,FR1AN). I did manage to snag Jim @ CN2R on
scatter over SA. It was very slow after that with rates like 10 an hour.
Sunday started out even worse that Saturday. I didn't hear a signal (except for
NQ4I) until 1230z. Then I found 5H3EE just as his signal peaked and J28JA a few
minutes later. CQing yielded CQ3T and VQ9JC who were both S9 plus. I prepared
myself for what I thought was going to be a good Eu run but only a few EA's, an
occasional F, DP9Z was it. However, W1,2 and 3 were strong and the occasional
African (5V7BR) kept me busy. When that died out, I turned the antenna west.
Some W6's were worked but I had to look back to Eu each time another EA called.
There were several Mediterranean stations that were very strong like IM0/IK0FMB
at s9+10. I could hear SV9GPV as late as 1800z. By then the W6 and W7 stations
were strong with solid runs until about 2130z. The rest of the contest was very
slow only giving up about 25 QSO's.
Regardless of the low SSN (1 spot!), I still had a blast.
See you all in the WPX CW. My score from last year with 830 QSO's will be hard
to beat, but one never knows what mother nature has in store for us.
Neal Sulmeyer, K4EA
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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