CQWW WPX Contest, SSB
Call: N8II
Operator(s): N8II
Station: N8II
Class: SOSB10 LP
QTH: WV
Operating Time (hrs): ~24
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160:
80:
40:
20:
15:
10: 1053
------------
Total: 1053 Prefixes = 687 Total Score = 1,975,812
Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club
Comments:
Things started off with a lot of promise, loud SA and JA's/East Asia. I was able
to run Japanese for a while and accumulated quite a few prefixes including 8J1,
T32, B4, RT0, VK6, VK8, VY1, and VR2. A solar flare almost ruined Saturday with
the band opening so painfully slowly and late to EU with the first direct path
EA/CT's worked around 1215Z and I was not able to run EU until 1335Z when some
Germans finally had good signals. All day long can best be described as a
struggle with virtually no Scandinavians and only a very few Russians working
RM5 first at 1445Z. I finally succumbed to a break at 1915Z after struggling to
work a couple of EA's. At 1955Z, something wonderful had happened, signals were
strong and that even included SM, OH, and Russia, but it lasted only until
2055Z, then the rest of the day was pretty slow with the only strong signals
from the south and Oceania. The path to JA essentially closed all evening. S8-9
precipitation static from heavy rain/wind hit the high yagi just as I finished
sweeping the band to the west; luckily, the lower south yagi was quiet. It was
still the same after a two hour break at 02Z! The static and some snow were
there for maybe 75 minutes on Sunday, making running very difficult. Day one
was finished with 645 hard gathered QSO's. Sunday morning by 12Z was pretty
much back to normal or even above normal conditions especially on the more
polar paths logging many northern EU and Russians plus loud stations from
central Asia and the far East calling in such as HS0, YB0, EX8, RL9, VU2, and
VU3, but running became difficult after about 1530Z as the EU to west coast USA
path blew wide open and I had pretty well worked out the band. During a S&P
sweep at 1830Z (midnight in VU) a VU2 was S9+25db, about the loudest ever heard
here from India. Another surprise was a very early opening to JA with some loud
signals starting at 2035Z (0535 JST!), but I was only sporadically active after
1910Z and the JA's dropped out early around 2330Z which was right around sunset,
so a final rush of Asian mults was not to be had.
Compared to the ARRL contests, activity was down a bit from EU and the number
of USA stations calling CQ seemed at least as high, but they were so weak on
backscatter that very few could hear me, not worth the struggle of trying too
often. Many thanks for all of the QSO's and prefixes. When I hit 900 Q's,
exactly 600 were multipliers, a great ratio. The abundance of mults keeps
things interesting. My number of USA Q's and mults were substantially lower
than expected, but that was due to poor conditions on Saturday and always
having a band wide open from Eu to western NA Sunday. Many thanks for all of
the Q's.
73, Jeff
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