CQWW WPX Contest, SSB
Call: C4Z
Operator(s): 5B4AIZ
Station: 5B4AIZ
Class: SOSB15 HP
QTH: MAZOTOS
Operating Time (hrs): 26
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160:
80:
40:
20:
15: 1851
10:
------------
Total: 1851 Prefixes = 792 Total Score = 4,008,112
Club: Chiltern DX Club
Comments:
In the time since I purchased my radio the K2 has come and gone, the K3 is now a
firm and established favourite along with the 5000DX, SDr's etc. My little TS570
is now a senior citizen among the shacks of the contesting world. In the realm
of Cw it is still a Prince, a star which can hold it's own against whatever
the remainder of the contesting world can throw at it. However on the two
occaisions in each year I press the USB button and lower the Heil mic boom for
WPX & WW it doth protest that I have always ignored it's need for
filtering.
In a nutshell as an occaisional ssb op I do not have any serious intentions
with these contests but do the best I can. That entails taking into account the
limitations of the rig and choosing the most suitable arena to use it. Because
of the great amount of room on 10 mtrs that is where I normally choose to play
it. Friday evening the indices were looking horrible and looked no better
Saturday morning before I started up so I opted to go for 15 mtrs instead.
I really don't need to add anything to the comments of others, band cndx really
were the pits with the propagation lamp switching on and off causing a lot of
frustrating periods. It was never possible to get any sustained runs going, 2
or 3 minutes and then stop! Whilst dx always seemed to be there along the
tropical belt those are relatively few in numbers. There were only brief
sporadic openings to JA both mornings, nothing from VK/ZL first day and a
solitary ZL plus just 4 VK's second day. Stateside big guns briefly and barely
audible Saturday, SA & Africa always have a good path this way but again
they are small in number.
Those high A & K indices would have ruled out 10 mtrs for all but the south
of EU making 15mtrs very crowded. Because of the absence of filtering I had big
problems pulling through the weak callers and numbers because of the qrm from
adjacent stns who were not necessarily wide or splattering, although many were.
S&P was mainly a waste of time as too often the desired stn was buried under
the qrm so I pretty well gave that up.
Second day there was a noticeable improvement but not in early morning as for
USA, here it didn't happen until mid afternoon leaving only about 3 useful
hours before the band died down. There was a second flush of JA's which was
unusual for that time, pity that most of them would not have been aware and be
qrv on the lower bands at that time. I could not believe that I was spending so
much time beaming east in the afternoon when I should have been working west but
EU just was not coming through. It was a relief to hear USA finally coming in
for gathering a few more prefixes although in my case I have the Mt Olympus
Mountain range ( 6,000 ft) blocking the path and additionally the EU wall to
penetrate so only manage to make it with the strongest stns which is a big
disadvantage in this event when USA is such a large hunting ground for
prefixes.
Despite the many periods of idleness I felt pretty bushed when it was all over,
far more so than after a cw event. I just don't have what it takes to become
accomplished 'phone' op and am full of admiration for the CN2R's who can
vocally keep going at such a furious pace for hours on end - just incredible!
There were good times - like coming across T2, 5W and others I forget, plus
being called by T5, T6, TO9, NH6, HD2, + Carrib travellers, the sort of stuff
that you can spend a lot of time waiting in line for.
There were difficult times, like a bunch of Chinese who seemed to have invented
some new English words I never heard before in their phonetics, plus of course
the badly modulated callers. The constant fading making exchanges an ordeal, my
UBN will definitely have a big Ouch! factor.
There were bad times, like the bully boys who take the frequency, especially
one, obviously an SO2R man, I had asked 2 times if the frequency was
occupied,with a respectable wait for a response, then made 2 qso's before he
came back to claim that qrg. To these guys I say "This is not a Casino
where you can buy a machine reservation" Spectrum is precious on crowded
bands and many other guys want to play too!
Did I enjoy it despite all of the trials and tribulations and will I be back?
Try keeping me away!.
Rig TS570 + Acom 1010. 3 ele Triband Yagi up 15mtrs. Logging with 'SD'
73 Brian C4Z / 5B4AIZ.
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