CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW
Call: N7WA
Operator(s): N7WA
Station: N7WA
Class: SOSB/40 HP
QTH:
Operating Time (hrs): 22
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160:
80:
40: 648 35 84
20:
15:
10:
------------------------------
Total: 648 35 84 Total Score = 213,248
Club: Western Washington DX Club
Comments:
I spent the past week trying to decide whether to go single band 20M or 40M.
Because of a variety of issues in my personal life, I decided it would be
better to have the daylight hours be mostly free.
Forty started out reasonably well to Europe Friday. It sounded very 'hollow'
but I was able to work a fair number of mults. Then, as morning approached
Europe, they pretty much went away. I worked a few Carib stations and some
Brazilians but there wasn't too much activity at that point. I decided to take
a nap and see what sunset in Asia would bring. Testing the waters after my nap,
I went back for another nap.
Finally about midnight local time, I was rewarded with a string of JA's that
didn't really quit until our morning. Sprinkled within was most of eastern Asia
and Oceania. It was a nice run. Propagation didn't quite make it to eastern
Africa or south Asia but I was happy. I was surprised by the number of Thai and
Chinese stations. One happy find was Reunion Island calling a lonely CQ as in
the early morning. Long path into Europe the hour prior to our sunrise was
better than the prior evening's short path and more European mults fell into
the log. Before I fell asleep on the couch, I has 508Q's, 28 zones and 62
countries for 131K. I thought that was a decent result for about 16 hours
of work.
Checking the bands a couple hours before sunset on Saturday, I could hear
Europeans but working them wasn't possible. I drifted in and out of
the shack
picking up the occasional Carib station or VE with search and pounce. About
0000Z, I could pick up some stronger Europe doing search and pounce. In the
0100Z I found a hole in the east coast wall and was able to do a slow but
steady run to Europe(albeit, with many zero pointer zone 5's looking for a
zone 3 interspersed). It seemed a lot quieter than Friday night. After a
couple
hours, I got pushed out of my hole by a W9 who's call shall be forever engraved
upon my mind... arghh!! Black hole, my butt! He had no problem working
Europeans on top of me.
Never could re-establish a run after that so I started picking off some South
American mults. As I finished working two double mults for zones 6 and 7,
something happened and the SWR on the 40M antenna jumped. I checked everything
back to the hard line coming off the tower. Whatever it is, it's up 90' in the
air and I was out of the test. (No, I don't climb in the dark.) Maybe the
freezing weather? Maybe too much antenna rotation and something worked loose?
Maybe that home brew hard line connector? It'll have to wait for daylight and
maybe some warmer temps to find out. One of the Europeans I worked in my final
hour was OH2BAD. Maybe that was Murphy giving me a heads up?
Sigh... there is always next year. On the positive side, I learned a lot about
40M propagation and I see more Single Band 40M in my future.
cheers
dink
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