CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW - 2021
Call: VO2AC
Operator(s): VO2AC
Station: VO2AC
Class: SO(A)AB HP
QTH:
Operating Time (hrs): 40
Remote Operation
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 5 3 2
80: 451 13 56
40: 619 21 74
20: 707 21 77
15: 445 19 73
10: 33 10 17
------------------------------
Total: 2260 87 299 Total Score = 2,178,584
Club: Maritime Contest Club
Comments:
Remote: TS-590, KPA500, HF9V (with 160m coil), MA5B
With the addition of the KPA500 earlier this Fall, this was the first time
entering this contest in the HP category from the remote. My best score in the
LP category was in 2018. Adding the amp gave me an additional 800Qs, 21Z, 65C,
and more than doubled my final score. Definitely worth the investment. I'm sure
condx helped as well. Having a real 160m antenna, and 10m condx like the SSB
leg, would have brought the score closer to 3M. Since this was my first time
entering this category, I was setting a new personal record with each QSO!
The contest didn't start out the greatest. Power went off at the remote early
Thursday morning and came back on about 16 hours later. After work on Thursday
I set everything up on the logging PC at the remote. On my way home from work
on Friday, about 2 hours before the contest started, I got a text message saying
that the power was gone again. It came on again around 0015, long enough for me
to connect to the remote and set up the logging program, before going off again
before I could make any QSOs. It came back on, about 45 minutes later, so my
first QSO wasn't until 0118Z.
In first two hours I had something happen, twice, on two different bands:
someone worked me then started CQing up the band, but within my passband (300Hz
filters)! I get that the bands are crowed, but could you not move a little
further and make it less obvious?
I'm really liking the two SDRPlay RSPs (RSP1A and RSP2) for spectrum display,
one for each VFO. Whenever I was on 15m or 20m I would leave the other VFO on
10m and watch for signals. It worked great!
10m never really opened up here, just enough to reach across the Atlantic to the
Western edge of EU/AF (CT, CT3, EA, EA8, PA, F) and the Caribbean and Northern
South America. I didn't hear any LU or PY, which is weird, until both called me
Sunday afternoon in the middle of my only brief USA pileup (~15Qs). Those were
the only LU and PY that I worked on 10m. Just when I thought 10m couldn't get
any weirder, I called and worked LN8W followed by OA4O. 3B8M was a nice
surprise.
Condx seemed to take a nosedive around 2300Z Saturday. I was on 40 & 80m by
that time. The bands didn't sound anything like Friday evening, with the
background noise being higher and signals sounding muffled. W3LPL called on 80m
around 0030Z and it was a struggle to pull him out. I was tired and considered
stopping, but glad that I trudged through it until condx picked back up about 5
hours later.
Thanks for the QSOs!
73,
Chris VO2AC / VE3FU
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