CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW
Call: W6YX
Operator(s): N7MH
Station: W6YX
Class: SO(A)SB20 HP
QTH: Stanford
Operating Time (hrs): 25.4
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160:
80:
40:
20: 1332 38 142
15:
10:
------------------------------
Total: 1332 38 142 Total Score = 647,820
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
I was trying to fix some broken wiring in an SO2R cable in the hour before the
contest when K2YY showed up. John wanted to do SB 15 and I was planning to do SB
20 so instead of fixing the SO2R cable I hastily added bandpass filtering and
moved the cables for my second radio to John's 15m operating position.
I'd tried SB 20 both HP and LP in past years so this year I decided to try 20 HP
assisted. Having a second radio is less critical when operating assisted on a
single band. Contest rules prohibit 2BSIQ/dual-CQing (on the same band) anyway
and it's not necessary to tune the second radio to find stations to work since
almost all come from the spotting assistance.
Being limited to a single K3 with a sub-RX was not so bad. Writelog has an SO2V
mode that works almost like SO2R with a K3. I did miss being able to use the CWT
to zero-beat the stations I was calling. Interleaving a pounce QSO during a
steady run is feasible with SO2R but impossible with SO2V.
Helping out K2YY delayed my start and I had a computer keying issue related to
the SO2R Box so I only made one QSO in the first 9 minutes. Even so, the first
hour was my best clock hour with 138 QSOs.
The best 60 minute rate was 161/hour from 0012 to 0111
The best 30 minute rate was 182/hour from 0012 to 0041
The best 10 minute rate was 210/hour from 0026 to 0035
The band closed down to Asia around 0200 with a few of the big guns remaining
for a short while and then just a few Caribbean, South and Central American
stations. I called it a night at 0500 after only 7 Qs in the 0400 hour.
I got back about 1345 and the band was open to zones 6 to 13 so I worked
everything that was spotted and tried running, beaming that direction, with no
answers. There were whispers of European stations but none were workable. At
1421 I was finally able to work 6V7A and immediately after CN3A. Then several EA
stations and TK0C.
Shortly after 1430 the band was wide open to zones 14 and 15 (zones 16 and 20
came later). I set the Writelog packet spots window to show mults only and
started clicking and pouncing to work all the mults. Once I worked all the
workable mults I found a spot high in the band at 14134 and ran Europeans,
occasionally working spots on the second VFO using SO2V. This was good for 50
minutes when most of the QSOs began to come from the spot-clicking so I
abandoned the run. Just doing click-and-pounce was a bit more effective because
I could use the K3's CWT to zero-beat the spotted stations which got more
answers than just calling on the spotted frequency. On two occasions I heard two
stations come back to me and successfully worked both by sending a single
exchange.
Just before 1900 I noticed that there was a VE calling CQ near the frequency I'd
landed on but the callsign wasn't in my packet spots window. That's when I
realized I'd set my cluster filter to omit VE spots. Guess I was thinking of
ARRL DX... I changed the filter settings and then had a 20 minute period of
working almost exclusively the VEs I'd been ignoring. In retrospect this was a
brilliant strategy - work the 3-point Europeans while the band was open and
ignore the 2-point VEs since they would still be workable later.
Just after the VE-fest I noticed that I wasn't hearing many of the remaining
unworked EU spots. I assumed the band was dying to Europe and found a spot low
in the band to CQ and pick up the last few stragglers. To my surprise the band
was still quite open and I worked a bunch more EU stations, mostly LA, OH and SM
who were all quite loud, but also a few DL, UA, UR, etc. (and more VEs I'd
ignored).
One really weird moment was when I was called by R1BCU. I missed the last letter
of the call and had to ask for repeats several times - "R1BC?". Out of
nowhere another stronger signal calls me and it is R1BCO. So I work BCO first,
then make sure that BCU confirms.
With the band still somewhat open to Europe I began to see spots for JAs. Should
I rotate the antenna and start running to Asia? I finally rotated at 2140 when I
was called by a JA while beaming EU.
The next hours were a steady rate of mostly JAs with occasional click-and-pounce
forays for South Americans. Peak clock hour was 87 in the 2300 hour. After 0138
I didn't get any more answers to my CQs and couldn't find anyone new to work so
after a half-hour of nothing I went home and watched a movie with the XYL.
After sleeping several hours I woke up, ate cereal and stopped at the
Jack-in-the-Box 24-hour drive-thru to get my morning coffee on the way to the
shack. The delivery truck was parked at Jack's and the drive-thru screen was
dark. NO COFFEE!!
I arrived at the shack about 1200, more than two hours earlier than Saturday.
The band was again open to a few stations in zones 6 to 13, but I'd already
worked all of them. After an hour of no Qs I drove back to Jack-in-the-Box which
was now open and got my coffee, probably a 15-minute round-trip. I still didn't
hear anyone new until just before 1400. Since I didn't have anything better to
do I provided non-RBN spots for the stations that I could hear (getting a
non-RBN spot always seems to pick up the rate for a short time when I've been at
DX locations in CQWW CW).
Europe seemed to be workable just a few minutes earlier than the previous day,
or maybe I could work weak signals early because I wasn't competing with the
stronger callers they'd already worked the day before. First Europe worked was
M2G at 1424 after calling for about 10 minutes off and on. At that point the
packet spots window was full of unworked stations so I started clicking and
pouncing, mults first.
Midway through the 1500 hour I started running at the lowest clear frequency -
14141! I stayed there for an hour and a half, also working spots on the second
VFO. I kept an eye out for new mults and eventually lost my run frequency while
trying to work one.
Several run frequencies later, I rotated to Asia again at almost the same time
as on Saturday. This time I split power between the Asia and South America
antennas. I had quite a few LU, PY, and CX stations call. Should have done that
the first day when things got slow.
There were several mults that I heard but could not hear me. 4X2M almost got my
call before finally giving up. CP6UA was weak, had a pileup, then got weaker
later. 4O1HQ CQed in my face. I heard a ZA1 station but he didn't seem to hear
any of the callers. Others had pileups that I couldn't break and then
disappeared - ZP9MCE, 3B8. 9V1 showed up in the last few minutes and time ran
out as I tried to call. I heard a JT1 on the first evening but didn't get the
full call and then I accidentally did something (clicked on a spot?) that moved
my frequency and then couldn't remember what frequency he had been on. Never
heard or saw JT spotted again.
I listened on the spotted frequencies for 7X, A4, A6 many times but never heard
a peep.
TZ4AM was the one that got away. There was a small pileup calling him and I
realized he was working stations up from his transmit frequency. I tried calling
on the frequency of the previous station he'd worked. He came back to someone,
possibly me, but whoever he came back to didn't copy their call so someone sent
a "?".
A very loud station then came on frequency and repeated his call over and over,
presumably having just clicked on the spot and heard the "?" and
assuming that it was TZ4AM sending the "?". TZ4AM in the meantime sent
the exchange again, several times, with more "?"'s sent as no one
could copy through the loud station continually repeating his call and
responding to the new "?"'s he heard, oblivious to TZ4AM repeatedly
sending an exchange. I don't think TZ4AM heard this loud station as he was
listening up from his transmit frequency. I finally left because this had the
potential of continuing for a long time.
I never heard zones 22 or 34. I worked 85 zero-pointers including several who
called and worked me more than once. Several of the CQWW regulars missing from
my log I now realize were doing single-band efforts on other bands - P49Y, UPxL,
SJ2W, OQ5M, CX9AU, OM2VL, KP2M, S50A,...
When the Asia opening was ending both evenings I found that by tuning across the
band I was able to work a few stations that had not been picked up by any of the
RBN nodes in North America. These included weaker HS, YB, and BY stations.
Having my own skimmer on-site would likely have found these for me - something
to consider for the future.
Thanks to all for the QSOs. Conditions were better than I expected and I
appreciate all of those who traveled to rare mults and dealt with unruly
pileups.
73,
-Mike, N7MH
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