ARRL DX Contest, CW - 2020
Call: K2DM
Operator(s): K2DM
Station: K2DM
Class: SOAB QRP
QTH: Florida
Operating Time (hrs): 36
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 25 18
80: 84 51
40: 150 59
20: 320 74
15: 63 35
10: 15 13
-------------------
Total: 657 250 Total Score = 492,750
Club: The Villages Amateur Radio Club
Comments:
From 2003 to 2010, I won the QRP category for W/VE in the ARRL DX CW contest.
This was when I lived in New Jersey and had monoband yagis at 90 feet on 40M –
10M. I was motivated by a very friendly rivalry with Bob, K3PH and Doug, KR2Q.
Often as not, one of us would win the category back then – except for the two
years when other ops named Briggs deposited me in second place. Both of my
brothers had the advantage of better antennas and locations. I suppose I may
have to concede a slight skill advantage to them also.
In 2012, I moved full time to The Villages – a deed restricted community in
central Florida. Goodbye 90-foot towers and monoband yagis; hello attic dipoles
and 20-foot flagpole verticals. While all of us contesters and DXers in The
Villages have made do with what we have, I have secretly kept an eye out for a
couple of acres just outside The Villages. A year ago, I found a place, and my
wife Karen, K4ZDM, enthusiastically said to go for it. It took from March to
October for us to ‘flip’ the 30-year-old single-wide trailer on the 2.4
acres of land and to put up a couple of towers. The antenna farm is not
complete, but I had the objective of inviting the many friends who devoted hours
of time and effort to come use a station with real antennas in the CQWW DX SSB
contest. Since then a handful of us have operated in a few contests just for
the joy of it, but I had always set my sights on doing a serious single-op QRP
entry in the ARRL DX CW contest. The antennas are less impressive than back in
NJ, and the conditions are challenging, but I wanted to see how the station
would play.
With Karen’s full support I put in about a 37-hour effort. It became apparent
early on that this was going to be a slug-fest. It was humbling to have
stations CQ in my face regularly. If I didn’t like them so much it would have
been humiliating to have my flagpole-vertical friends beat me in some of the
pileups. W2TR, K3ZGA and K2PS come to mind. Gary and Pete were probably
running a few hundred watts, but I know that Bob was barefoot at 100W. Oh well,
hang in there, George!
I used my customary QRP approach of searching and pouncing as I tuned up the
bands. When I found an apparently-clear frequency I would toss out a few CQs.
These actually netted me a few dozen Qs, and they gave my mind a break. I
started with a 30 hour on 40M, and it dropped to the low 20s for the next three
hours. When I QSYd to 80M I had another 30 hour, which surprised me because 80M
has been hard for me in the past. I ultimately made 84 Qs on 80M. But 160M was
a big surprise. I know all the big stations have been raving about how they
were able to rake in the Qs on 160M, but I was very happy to make 25 Qs there.
(Including KH6 and a few 6-band Caribbean stations. Sadly no EUs.) And to have
15M and 10M sort of open was a real treat. The 63 and 15 Qs I picked up on
those two bands really helped my score.
While I certainly did not expect to do as well as in 2010, I had what I thought
was the reasonable goal of exceeding last year’s winning totals of 519 Qs and
189 countries. After I achieved that, I accepted Karen’s high five and
pressed on to see if I could reach 600/200. When I got there, I told Karen that
630/215 would probably be tops for me. I was getting really tired, the rates in
the last five hours were 10, 11, 11, 12 and 7. I was channeling brother Jeff,
VY2ZM, with my chin falling to my chest as I tuned the bands towards the end.
So, although I hate to admit it, when I hit the 250 country total with 80
minutes to go, I packed up and went home.
I can’t thank Karen enough for driving down to the station a handful of times
with REAL food for me to eat and for all the encouragement.
Next up at “The Land” will be this weekend for a few of us to play in the
160M contest. Even though brother Peter, K3ZM, stole an ARRL DX CW QRP plaque
from me a decade ago I still get on and support him in the 160M contests.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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