ARRL DX Contest, CW
Call: NN7CW
Operator(s): NN7CW
Station: NN7CW
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: NFL
Operating Time (hrs): 39:43
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 48 29
80: 183 57
40: 505 81
20: 737 89
15: 234 60
10: 22 10
-------------------
Total: 1729 326 Total Score = 1,679,226
Club: Florida Contest Group
Comments:
This was my first all-band effort from my CB radio-style home station. No towers
yet, only verticals and some wire antennas.
I completed my 160m Inverted L after finding a probably 90-year-old $3 air
capacitor at the HamCation last weekend - bingo! I think the antenna performance
was decent, but I'd like to do some more testing.
For what it is, the Inverted V for 80m was doing a good job again. However, I
ran out of qsos quickly, so I mainly focused on 40m during the first night.
The 40m vertical worked well again and I feel that I can hold my ground when I'm
running.
I'm a little less pleased with my 20m vertical, which is not the fault of the
antenna, but rather because almost everyone else uses some sort of directional
antenna. I got bumped off my run qrg several times, especially by people who
went 100 Hz below or above me and were using some crazy key clicks generator,
like the FT1000MP I sold last year. Since I now have a pan adapter, I get so see
what is going on and some signals were three of four times as wide as the clean
ones. I have to admit that in the past I took advantage of a dirty signal
myself, because it would keep my frequency clear. Now the tables have turned and
I have to suffer from what I dished out in the past - what goes around comes
around...
I also use verticals on 15 and 10, but they are far from being spectacular. In
fact, latter is a CB radio vertical on a wobbly telescopic mast. I found a 15m
opening to Europe Sunday afternoon, but the run ended abruptly after maybe 20
minutes. Before and after was just a little S&P, while going back and forth
to 10. I got to run on 10 last year, but that did not happen this time.
As always, I used two radios to compensate for the modest antenna situation, but
ran out of qso options a couple of times, especially Sunday afternoon. On the
other hand, the antennas are supposed to be a temporary low-cost installation
and for what they are, they worked pretty well.
The only thing I did not understand were the many calls I received from mainland
stations on 20 and 40 and I have to say that it really frustrated a few times.
The mode was mostly similar: One or two DX station(s) were calling, plus a guy
from the US who won't let me work the weaker DX. So I had to work the W and
voila, at least one of the DX stations had moved on...
Other than that, I had a lot of fun and this contest is definitely in my top
five. Thanks everyone and I hope to work you again soon!
73, Wolf
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