CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB
Call: AD1C
Operator(s): AD1C
Station: AD1C
Class: SOAB(A) LP
QTH: CO
Operating Time (hrs): 31.5
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160:
80:
40: 109 23 56
20: 200 26 78
15: 330 30 99
10: 444 28 104
------------------------------
Total: 1083 107 337 Total Score = 1,357,752
Club: Grand Mesa Contesters of Colorado
Comments:
Radio: ICOM IC-7600 (100W)
Antennas: HyGain AV-640 multi-band vertical, ground mounted
1/2 size G5RV in attic (much better than vertical to JA on 10
meters)
Software: WriteLog
It took me about three years to work my first 100 DXCC entities on 10 meters
since moving to Colorado, using all three modes (CW, SSB and RTTY). This past
weekend I did it again using only SSB, and in just two days! I had never
worked 100 DXCC entities in a DX contest from Colorado before (over all
bands).
I'm not a huge fan of phone contests. The pileups don't require as much brute
force as RTTY, but also don't allow for as much finesse as CW. Plus all the
noise annoys the family. Last year, Carol was out-of-town, and was supposed to
be out-of-town this weekend, but her plans changed (though she was out most of
the day Sunday). I had hoped to program some voice memories to use with
WriteLog, but I was away on business earlier in the week and just ran out of
time. Maybe I'll be ready in March. Nor did I install the lighting fixture
that I had purchased the weekend before.
When contesting at my own station, I'm a DXer first, then a contester. Thus I
like to be connected to the DX Cluster so I don't miss stations that might be a
new band/mode entity, or new for the year (think CQ DX Marathon). I had only
two goals DX-wise this time: work TU2T (new from Colorado) which I did work on
20 meters early in the contest (and on 15 meters late in the 'test), and PJ7 on
10 meters, which I did NOT work on phone but did work on both CW and RTTY during
the contest period. I get excited by other things, like working a station on
all four bands (see below), or working the stations in Zones 24/27/28 which
were more elusive from the east coast. I consciously didn't try to work the
rare Africans through their huge pileups this time (like ZD8O and 5H3EE),
though I did call ST2AR at various times but never got through.
Not being competitive has its advantages. I had dinner with my wife and
watched some TV with her (with our special-needs cat in my lap) both Friday and
Saturday night. I took breaks when I wanted. I followed the stories about the
storms back east; we had about four inches of snow mid-week, while I was away
on business in CA (it was 70F when I left San Jose, and 20F when I arrived in
Denver), but the snow was mostly gone by Friday. But when I was in front of
the radio, I was busy full-time.
Each contest is different, which is probably why we keep operating them year
after year; this one was no exception. I had not had the pleasure of hearing
10 meters so full of signals since moving to Colorado over four years ago (all
the way to 29,000 KHz and beyond!). Having so many stations spread out over
more than 700 KHz really helped me work even the weaker stations who were
calling CQ. In Colorado, the band stays OPEN to Europe for only about four
hours (8 a.m. to 12 p.m. local time). Unlike the CQWW RTTY contest a month
earlier, I did not work any European UAs this time, but did work Ukraine and
Belarus which are also in Zone 16. I heard OJ0X with a good signal on Sunday
for literally two minutes as he came up then faded back into the noise.
I had to keep in mind the other bands (15/20) despite being mesmerized by 10
meters. I still don't know how to operate 20 meters out here (not that I was
all that good back east either), and thus didn't work very many QSOs/mults the
first day. 40 meters is always a huge challenge for me. I worked more Europe
than usual between 04-06z Friday night (10 p.m. to midnight local time) which
was good, because Saturday night the band was not as good. Similarly, I worked
the few JAs I heard on Saturday morning (along with ZM4T, TX5A and a UA0), then
had a lull before Europe heard me on 20, but I couldn't work that much. I made
my first 15 meter QSOs with Europe right at my sunrise (1322z). Past experience
has taught me that 10 meters is better on one of the two days of the contest
than the other, so make hay while the band is open. This year it seemed to be
equally good on both days; in hindsight, I should have been checking 15/20
more.
There's a rule-of-thumb that says at the half-way point you will have worked
about 60% of your total QSOs, and about half of your final score. You don't
get much closer than this:
Final: 1083 QSOs => 1357K points
Half: 643 QSOs => 649K points
(59%) (48%)
Sunday morning I slept for an extra half hour because I knew there wasn't that
much to do before sunrise. 40 meters was more sparse than the previous
morning. There was a distinct peak right at sunrise, when I worked AH0BT
(double mult), VK2IM (double mult) and YB0AR (double mult). That was pretty
much it, except for AH2R and one JA I hadn't worked the previous morning.
Being way down in QSOs/mults on 20, I tried to work the band, but no one could
really hear me, so I consciously spent the post-sunrise hour on 15 meters
instead, picking up stuff I had missed the previous day from spending so much
time on 10. As long as there was stuff to work on 10/15, the contest was fun.
Once I had to go down to 20, not so much. The Europeans on 20 meters had fairly
good signals during the last couple of hours and were not that hard to work,
except for the pileups.
Back when I used to operate phone contests for a living :-), we always
considered 10 meters a bottomless pit of LUs (Argentina). It seems the
Brazilians have made some inroads in this area:
160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total
LU 5 5 25 35
PY 3 9 14 25 51
Maybe we should all be learning Portuguese too!
A month or two ago, Doug K1DG asked me if I had read "The Big Year", about
competitive bird watching. I admitted I had not, but on his advice, ordered
the book from Amazon and will read it during an upcoming vacation. It's
supposed to have parallels with competitive ham radio. But I doubt they'll
make a movie about us.
73 - Jim AD1C
Countries worked by band:
160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total
3D2 1 1
3V 1 1
3X 1 1
4O 1 1 1 3
5B 1 1 3 5
5N 1 1
6W 1 1
6Y 2 1 1 1 5
8R 1 1
9A 1 4 5 4 14
9M6 1 1 2
9Y 1 1
BY 1 1
C3 1 1 1 1 4
C5 1 1 1 1 4
C6 1 1 2
CE 1 3 2 4 10
CM 1 1 1 2 5
CN 1 2 3 2 8
CT 1 5 4 5 15
CT3 1 2 2 3 8
CU 1 1 1 1 4
CX 2 4 6
D4 1 1 1 1 4
DL 2 5 19 27 53
DU 1 1 2
E5/s 1 1 2 4
E7 1 1 1 4 7
EA 5 10 18 32 65
EA6 2 2 1 5
EA8 2 2 3 7
EA9 1 1 2 4
EI 1 3 3 4 11
ER 1 1
ES 1 1 2
EU 1 1 1 3
F 6 6 9 17 38
FM 1 1 2
FO/m 1 1 1 3
FY 1 1 1 3
G 3 4 8 19 34
GI 1 1 2 4
GM 1 4 4 9
GU 1 1
GW 3 3
HA 2 6 3 11
HB 1 1 1 3
HC 1 1 2
HI 1 1 1 1 4
HK 3 3
HP 1 1
HR 1 1 2
I 5 8 8 14 35
IT9 1 1 2 4 8
J3 1 1
JA 10 3 32 52 97
JT 1 1
JW 1 1
K 2 2 2 4 10
KH0 1 1 1 3
KH2 1 2 2 5
KH6 3 2 7 10 22
KL 1 2 3 2 8
KP2 2 2 3 2 9
KP4 1 1 1 2 5
LA 2 1 1 4
LU 5 5 25 35
LX 1 1 2 1 5
LY 2 1 3 6
LZ 1 2 2 5
OA 1 1
OE 3 1 4 8
OH 5 4 9
OH0 1 1 2
OK 1 4 12 10 27
OM 1 2 3 3 9
ON 1 1 5 8 15
OX 1 1
OZ 1 1 2
P4 2 2 3 4 11
PA 1 2 1 5 9
PJ2 1 1 1 1 4
PJ4 1 1 1 1 4
PJ5 1 1 2
PJ7 1 1
PY 3 9 14 25 51
PZ 1 1 1 3
S5 1 5 8 12 26
SM 1 2 3 3 9
SP 3 4 8 6 21
SV 2 2
SV9 1 1
T7 1 1 2
TF 1 1 1 3
TG 1 1
TI 2 2 2 1 7
TK 1 1 2
TU 1 1 2
UA 3 5 7 15
UA2 1 1 2
UA9 1 6 4 4 15
UN 2 2
UR 2 2 1 5
V2 1 1
VE 15 22 27 8 72
VK 1 1 2 8 12
VP2M 1 1 1 3
VP5 1 2 2 5
VP9 1 1 2 1 5
XE 2 3 3 8 16
YB 1 1 2
YL 1 1 1 3
YO 1 1 1 3
YS 1 1
YU 3 8 2 13
YV 1 1 1 3 6
Z3 1 1
ZD8 1 1
ZF 1 1 2
ZK2 1 1 2
ZL 1 1 3 5
ZP 1 1 2
Four-band QSOs that I noted during the contest (there may have been more):
6Y9X, 9A1A, C5A, CE4CT, CN2R, CR2X, CR3A, CR6K, D4C, DJ4PT, DR1A, EC2DX, ED1R,
EI7M, G5W, G6PZ, IO5O, IR2C, IR4X, JA5FDJ, KH7X, KL7RA, LX7I, OK5W, OM7M, OT5A,
P40W, PJ2T, PJ4T, PS2T, PW7T, S53MM, TI8M, TM6M, VE2DXY, WP2Z
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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