ARRL DX Contest, CW - 2022
Call: KQ2M
Operator(s): KQ2M
Station: KQ2M
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: CT
Operating Time (hrs): 41
OpMode: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 117 45
80: 443 62
40: 1069 80
20: 1263 85
15: 1179 86
10: 51 32
-------------------
Total: 4122 390 Total Score = 4,816,890
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
It was in the ARRLDXCW contest 35 years ago (1987) that I introduced SO2R as a
strategy for operating every DX contest. I won my first SOABHP ARRLDXCW contest
that year and was proud to make a significant contribution to the advancement of
Radiosport and the development of new and better operating techniques and
tactics.
The single op category and station design permanently changed after that contest
and was aided by the utilization of computers and contesting logging programs.
35 years later I am still learning and improving. :-) What an exciting ride
it has been!
Friday afternoon of the contest I discovered that the 80 M 4-square had broken
again in the 70 mph wind gusts of the latest Nor'easter, so now, after a 90 hour
work week, I had to go out and fix it on very icy ground in the near dark. No
pre-contest rest for me. Fortunately I had been able to completely rebuild the
160 meter Inv L the previous weekend so at least I would have an unfinished but
useable 160.
I could not get anything going at 0000z on 40 so at 0019z I moved to 80 and had
a good run with R8TT calling in at 0033z and KQ2N at 0039z who I had not heard
in several decades. :-) I picked off some mults on 15 while 80 was open well
to Northern EU. ZA1F was a surprise at 0059z and great way to end the 00z with
104 qsos and 47 mults. I stayed on 80 but it got noisier as the Nor'easter
cranked up off the New England coast and it became almost impossible to copy
anyone. I also was not being heard well in EU with stations continually asking
me for repeats. I did not know until after the contest of the massive storm in
the UK which was causing problems for most of Europe. At 0130z I moved to 160
which was open well to Northern EU but not many stations were on. 80 was still
far too difficult to copy well and so I qsy'ed to 40 for a decent run,
punctuated by R8TT calling in @ 0224z. 40 was wide open and getting even better
and but it was time to go back to 160 for some more mults and with qrn being so
high it was not possible for me to do it on the 2nd radio until 0310z when I had
a very brief run and a few mults called in. I qsy'ed back to 80 at 0317z after
noticing that the signals were now louder and easier to copy as we approached EU
sunrise. I ran until 0359 when I qsy'ed to 160 for a 10 minute run with 7 mults
and then s & p'ed for some more mults again using only 1 radio.
At 0429z I went back to running on 80 with loud Northern EU stations calling in
while occasionally picking off a mult on the 2nd radio on 160. I did not feel
like I was operating effectively or efficiently - like I was always a step
behind and reacting to cndx rather than anticipating what was going to happen
and moving to the right band just as the propagation changed. I s & p 'ed
80 near the end of the 05z picking up a bunch or SW EU and CA/SA mults and then
at 06z on 40 began a spectacular EU sunrise run with a 163 hour - my best ever
at that time. 40 was extraordinary - helped by a 120+ SFI and SSN of ~ 90 -
more than enough to keep the MUF > 7 mhz and keep the band open quite well
even after EU sunrise. 07z and 08z continued with 122 and 97 hours with a few
2nd radio mults - notable of which was KH6LC on 160 @ 0728z and ZL3X on 80 @
0837z.
At 09z 40 was still open well although the volume of stations had dried up and
now I was faced with a hard decision: Either continue to run on 40 and hunt low
band mults and really hurt all day Saturday or get an hour of sleep and forego
the low bands and start on 20. I swept 40 for mults and then opted for a nap -
I went qrt at 0912z with 901 qsos and 154 mults - of which only 7 qsos and 5
mults were from 20 and 15. This was my best ever start on the low bands in
ARRLDXCW.
I was back on at 1110z but 20 did not sound very solid and I did not have the
usual great first hour. Instead it was a fight to maintain a freq. and I did
not feel loud. 11z produced 174 qsos in 50 min with SV9COL and TF3SG calling in
with a peak rate of 302.5/233 last 100/10 qsos but I was happy to move to 15 at
1215z. 15 was open with strong signals but it was clustered with stations in
one area at a time - almost like spotlight propagation. The rate was excellent
but not up to what I have often seen; 194 and 191 in 12z and 13z hours. TA2SE,
SV9COL, ZB2CW and ZF1A were notable callers. In the 14z hour the pileup and
rate thinned a bit to 164 with TF3DC, VP8NO, ZA1F and TK5EF and I began to hear
and S & P some EU mults on 10 CR3DX, CQ8EE, D4L, TO4A and other SA/CA mults.
I had hoped that 10 might open to EU but 10 only teased. I heard the Eastern
MA, NH and ME stations running some EU that I could not hear. By 16z 15 was
winding down with a 110 hour and it was time to think about going back to 20. I
continued to S & P on 10 and found TK5EP and F5NBX who were loud but I did
not hear any other EU stations. ZD7BG was the last Eastern station I worked on
10. At 1706z someone flipped the OFF switch for me on 10 and 15 and I moved to
20 where everything sounded auroral. We must have had a flare.
17z - 19z were solid hours on 20 with 155, 141 and 105 qsos but not as good as
hoped - clearly the flare was a major one - signals dropped noticeably in
strength and the rate was in fits and starts. QSB ramped up enormously - I
could see 50 db changes in signal strength in a few seconds ! making any qso a
real challenge. TA7I and Z36W called in the 17z hour and a LOUD NL7S called at
1909z off the side of the antenna with ZL1KW longpath as the 19z hour ended with
105 qsos. I remained on 20 running as I tuned with the 2nd radio picking up SA
and CA mults on 10 and 15 but the qsb and qrn demanded my full attention and my
2nd radio usage dropped to almost nothing. This was compounded by chronic lack
of sleep and several continuous hours of microsleeps which have always plagued
me. I began to have cognitive issues - in the 2 seconds between when a caller
called me and I started to enter the call into the computer I would forget the
callsign! This became a major problem and greatly impacted my rate. I have
never had to deal with this before and it was confusing. How can I work guys if
I can't remember the callsign long enough to log it?
At 2003z I began to get hopeful for an opening to JA/Asia when KL2R called in
off the side of the antenna. EU stations called steadily and the band seemed to
improve a bit. While I was trying various things to emerge from my brain fog I
began to notice that the ACOM2000a amp kept going offline on 15 as I was calling
mults. After 10 minutes of this I isolated it to be the Top 15 antenna and then
finally it was ALL the 15 meter antennas. UGH! Really bad news. In my stupor I
thought that maybe I had damaged the 15 meter stackmaster. Since I was not
operating well I decided to go outside and attempt to diagnose the problem.
That and the high qrn from rain that had passed through made this the right time
to stop operating. I was exhausted, brain dead and challenged by a 15 meter
problem. I felt like quitting and taking a nap and I almost did but I decided
to deal with 15 meter problem first.
At 2020z I went qrt. I climbed the slippery ledge and immediately noticed that
the top 15 antenna pl259 had green spots on it and what appeared to be some moss
on the coax itself! I scraped it off and scraped off the connector and moved
the pl259s over one port to test if it was the antenna port itself or the top 15
that was the problem. I connected the low 15 to the top 15 antenna port and
went back inside and tested it. Now ALL 4 antennas were working! Apparently
scraping the crud off the Top 15 PL259 made enough of a difference and now all
the antennas worked and the ACOM2000a no longer shut off! I relabeled the
antennas on the stackmaster controller and went back to running at 2033z - this
time on 40 - after a small 13 minute break. I felt enormous relief! 2nd qso on
40 was SV5DKL which picked up my spirits. I stayed on 40, which was extremely
noisy and had 83, 101 and 116 hours between 20z - 22z. Particularly notable
callers were CU8AS, TA7I, 4O4O and EA9EU. I picked up some 2nd radio SA and
Pacific mults on 15 but my 2nd radio usage was limited by my greatly reduced
brain bandwidth.
In the 22z hour I experienced a sudden BIG pileup which was almost all dupes. I
had no idea what happened but I have experienced this before and immediately
suspected that I was spotted as something other than KQ2M. I started to send
KQ2M after every qso and with every CQ but it didn't matter. Either people
didn't bother listen to what I was sending, or they heard my sending KQ2M and
ignored it, deciding that the cluster spot was correct and I was repeatedly
incorrectly sending my own callsign. Unbelievable!
Despite the time wasted working all of these dupes, I still managed a 116 hour
followed by a 67 hour at 23z, the highlight of which was 5Z4VJ calling in at
2316z and GU4EON @ 2334z. I finally began to wake up and aggressively tuned 20
on the 2nd radio picking up 8 mults ending with my good friend Dale, operating
ZP6/N3BNA @ 2359z.
I ended the first 24 hours with 2641 x 309 = 2,443,000 in 21.9 hrs. Decent for
my station with all that had happened.
Allowing for shaky propagation and more mult hunting on day 2 I was optimistic
that I would wind up with > 5.0 mg., but all of that would depend on
propagation.
Right at 0006z 40 faded and 160 POPPED. I qsyed to 160 called cq and made 5
qsos with 5 new mults in 12 minutes ! I also worked some SA/CA mults on 20 on
the 2nd radio. Mults are great but there was no rate so I went back to 80 for a
run at 0028z and then a brief run on 40 starting 0113z. The rate kept dropping
- part of it propagation, part of it EU stations getting sleep and partly my
rapidly dropping efficiency. I went back using 1 radio, found KL7SB, V4/KG9N,
4A7S and OX7AM for 40 meter mults and then attempted another run on 160 at 0156z
- the band was open well to Northern EU but at 0205z the 13 station run ended.
I tried a run on 80 and EA9EU called in for a new mult but nothing else. I
swept 40 again for mults, had a 2 minute run on 40 and then realized that I
needed sleep more than continuing operating. The rates in the 00z - 02z hours
were awful; 36, 31 and 20. I went qrt at 0240z.
Back on at 0441z for a 16 station run on 160 and some S & P which netted 2
more mults and then a run on 80 starting at 0525z. Cndx were good but qrn was
still high and qsb was ferocious. I worked 69 stations in the 05z and 77 in the
06z hours with mult callers HI3K, OX7AM, D44AO. 80 faded out early so I moved to
40 @ 0637z and then 40 faded out with MD2C calling in at 0711z. Back to 80
briefly and alternating between 40 and 80 a few more times before qrt @ 0803z.
Signals were up and down but activity was sparse like almost everyone in Europe
was QRT.
Oddly enough I was hearing ON75CLR 579 on 20 @ 0800z but I did not hear anyone
else on 20!
At 1030z I was back on hunting mults - I found YV6BXN and JA7ZFN on 80 and
JA6SHL on 40, he went from 339 to 579 in 10 minutes near my sunrise! I would
have stayed longer on 40 but it was time for 20.
1041z was the first qso on 20 and shortly after was a large pileup - but
Northern EU signals were greatly attenuated. I made 59 qsos in the 10z hour and
then 151 in the 11z hour as 20 finally opened well. EX8MJ and UN8PT called @
1133z and 1142z along with RD0A, UA0SE, UN7QF, RK0UN, UN9GD, UD8A and UN4PG in
quick succession as the band opened well to Central Asia. Although there might
be other mults that I needed I had to qsy to 15, moving there at 1221z. I was
met with a large pileup and the wildest qsb that I have ever experienced. A
station could be in the noise when he started calling, 559 by the 2nd or 3rd
character, 599+ by the 4th or 5th character and then almost S0 again by the end.
60 db of qsb in 3 seconds? It was almost like meteor scatter!
At 1225z R8TT exploded from 339 to 599 +10 while I worked him on 15 as did 4L8A
@ 1227z and UA9MA @ 1230z! All of these stations were in the same pileup and
simultaneously jumped 40 - 50 db in signal strength! And by 1230z the Central
Asian opening on 15 was over. It was the shortest and most explosive 15 meter
opening that I have ever heard! At 1252z we had a brief repeat opening and I
worked UA9BA and then a very loud E29TGW and Champ, E21EIC at 1301 and 1307z
followed by UN9GD, UA9W and 4L6QL between 1314z - 1319z. PJ2T and PJ4G called
in later in the hour and then CU8AS called @ 1421z. 15 started to fade badly
around 1430z; which was early. I had been tuning 10 at 1300z and it had a
spotlight opening to LZ9W 599 + 20 and EA7A and EA6FO 599 !! and it briefly
re-opened to DL, EA and F ~ 1415z and I worked 5 stations but that was it. I
continued to run on 15 picking up an occasional mult but it was clear that CNDX
were deteriorating quickly and it was time to qsy back to 20. 12z - 15z
produced 152, 129, 103 and 78 qsos and some mults but 15 was done for any runs.
At 1607z I was back on 20 where I had 100, 93 and 72 hours from 16z - 18z.
These were poor rates. I could hear the Eastern New England stations running
like crazy, but in Western New England, near the CT/NY border, 20 was marginally
open and my rate was about 1/2 - 2/3 of what it should have been. The most
unusual caller was JA7ZFN at 1649z for a new mult! I had not worked a JA on 20
until the afternoon on Sunday! JH8GEU followed a few minutes later. Both
stations were LOUD and several hours early on an unusual path. VU2TMP called at
1754z for another mult. At 18z I began to finally wake up and worked several
CA/SA mults on 15. ZA1F called at 1854z.
In the 19z hour I tuned 10 and 15 and worked a few more CA/SA mults while 20
became a slow walk with 60 qsos and ZA1ME calling in @ 1928z and JR2GRX @
1941z.
At 20z signals improved on 10 and 15 with a few more CA/SA mults. 20 was almost
dead by now and that left 40 as the run band while I continued to S & P 10
and 15 picking up 3D2AG @ 2110z on 15 and some more CA/SA. I then tuned 20
finding OX7AM, 5Z4VJ and VJ3A. 19z - 20z produced a paltry 60 and 46 qsos as the
rate continued to drop.
21z was 40 run and mult hunting on 10 - 20 for 61 qsos and then 22z - 23z was 45
and 47 qsos. Of special note was 9K2MU calling at 2156z on 40 and finding HL2WA
on 20 @ 2232z. I had a brief run of JA's on 20 from 2234z - 2342z but then a
better run of JA's and ZL3X on 15 from 2250z - 2302z. In the 23z hour it was S
& P with BY4DX, 9Z4Y, TO4A, P44W and 4U1UN on 20 and finishing with a modest
run on 80 from 2330z to 2359z. 15 was open to JA, barely, but I could not run or
S & P anyone.
I ended with 4122 qsos x 390 mult = 4,816,890 NON-Assisted in 41 hrs operating.
Although I operated SO2R, in reality I was mostly SO1R - my brain simply
couldn't handle using two radios for most of the weekend. My problem of
instantly forgetting callsigns continued until the end of the contest. I
believe that much of my poor Sunday rates resulted from that although the
continuing C and M class flares degraded propagation enough on Sunday to impact
that as well.
15M propagation on Sunday was the most fascinating and wildly variable that I
can ever recall. Minimal run of weak DL, I or occasional UA caller and then
over the next 30 seconds the "volume control" was steadily turned up
from S3 to 599+10! It stayed that way for 10 minutes and then the control got
turned all the way back down. Then it got turned up violently again with an
explosion of Central Asian and UA9 callers that went from S3 to 599+10 in
seconds! (That opening also lasted ~ 10 minutes with R8TT peaking at an
incredible 599+10 !). And then it got turned down again but this time the DL and
I stations remained at a minimal level of S5 before slowly building back up. It
was like a combination of waves of massive QSB and (what's the opposite of QSB?)
then massive continuous increases in signal strength PLUS spotlight propagation
combined. During this period 10 also saw some spectacular spotlight propagation
- I worked LZ9W, EA7A and EA6FO with S9 - S9 +20 signals while the rest of the
band was almost dead. Just 5 minutes before I had heard EA7A at S5 but did not
hear LZ9W or EA6FO. 10 minutes later LZ9W was gone, EA6FO was S3 and EA7A was
S7.
It was a reminder that even when the geomagnetic field is experiencing a solar
storm, if the SFI is high enough, 15 can bounce back quickly and maybe even 10.
The unexpected loudness of the JA's on 15 and 20 Sunday evening even with the
K=5 ! was very exciting. I think that we are on the verge of some very
exciting 10M openings coming soon. I also noticed that when working the
majority of stations on 15 and 20 this weekend, the Top antenna was often down
in signal strength compared to the lower antennas which indicates higher
wave angles of arriving signals - another sign of the upswing of cycle 25.
However I take this with a grain of salt given the solar flaring and radio storm
which certainly impacted arriving wave angles.
Kudos to top level single-ops posting scores in the NON-Assisted category K5ZD,
K1ZZ, K1DG and ZF1A in Multi op. Special mention to KA1IS on his ME hilltop
using only low wires and same with K1AR. Great competition! There is no better
way to gauge what is working/not working with the operator and station than by
comparing with others in your category.
Thanks for the qsos and the mults and a special THANK YOU to all the DXpedition
stations!
See you in WPX SSB !
73
Bob, KQ2M
kq2m@kq2m.com
BREAKDOWN QSO/mults KQ2M ARRL INTERNATIONAL DX CONTEST Single Operator
HOUR 160 80 40 20 15 10 HR TOT CUM TOT
0 ..... 81/32 18/11 ..... 5/4 ..... 104/47 104/47
1 18/12 35/2 30/8 . . . 83/22 187/69
2 2/1 . 106/18 2/1 . . 110/20 297/89
3 18/11 50/0 . . . . 68/11 365/100
4 25/10 55/4 . . . . 80/14 445/114
5 4/2 46/6 . . . . 50/8 495/122
6 . . 163/9 . . . 163/9 658/131
7 3/1 5/5 122/4 . . . 130/10 788/141
8 ..... 5/4 97/6 ..... ..... ..... 102/10 890/151
9 . . 11/3 . . . 11/3 901/154
10 . . . . . . . 901/154
11 . . . 174/30 . . 174/30 1075/184
12 . . . 49/4 145/31 . 194/35 1269/219
13 . . . . 191/11 . 191/11 1460/230
14 . . . . 159/5 5/5 164/10 1624/240
15 . . . . 130/6 8/7 138/13 1762/253
16 ..... ..... ..... ..... 99/1 11/8 110/9 1872/262
17 . . . 149/9 4/0 2/2 155/11 2027/273
18 . . . 140/3 . 1/0 141/3 2168/276
19 . . . 102/5 . 3/2 105/7 2273/283
20 . . 62/3 16/0 5/4 . 83/7 2356/290
21 . . 100/2 . 1/1 . 101/3 2457/293
22 . . 108/3 . 8/4 . 116/7 2573/300
23 . . 59/2 8/8 . . 67/10 2640/310
0 5/4 21/1 3/1 7/4 ..... ..... 36/10 2676/320
1 10/1 3/0 15/4 3/1 . . 31/6 2707/326
2 7/1 4/1 9/2 . . . 20/4 2727/330
3 . . . . . . . 2727/330
4 15/1 . . 1/1 . . 16/2 2743/332
5 10/1 58/3 . 1/0 . . 69/4 2812/336
6 . 41/1 36/0 . . . 77/1 2889/337
7 . 12/1 25/1 . . . 37/2 2926/339
8 ..... ..... 1/1 ..... ..... ..... 1/1 2927/340
9 . . . . . . . 2927/340
10 . 2/2 1/1 56/0 . . 59/3 2986/343
11 . . . 151/4 . . 151/4 3137/347
12 . . . 49/0 103/2 . 152/2 3289/349
13 . . . . 126/5 3/2 129/7 3418/356
14 . . . . 96/2 7/2 103/4 3521/360
15 . . . . 78/1 . 78/1 3599/361
16 ..... ..... ..... 97/2 3/0 ..... 100/2 3699/363
17 . . . 93/1 . . 93/1 3792/364
18 . . . 69/1 3/3 . 72/4 3864/368
19 . . . 53/1 6/3 1/1 60/5 3924/373
20 . . 37/0 . 2/2 7/2 46/4 3970/377
21 . . 51/1 6/3 1/1 3/1 61/6 4031/383
22 . . 15/0 16/2 14/0 . 45/2 4076/385
23 . 25/0 . 21/5 1/0 . 47/5 4123/390
DAY1 70/37 277/53 876/69 640/60 747/67 30/24 ..... 2640/310
DAY2 47/8 166/9 193/11 623/25 433/19 21/8 . 1483/80
TOT 117/45 443/62 1069/80 1263/85 1180/86 51/32 . 4123/390
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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