CQWW WPX Contest, SSB - 2022
Call: P40L
Operator(s): W6LD
Station: P40L/P49Y
Class: SOAB LP
QTH: Aruba
Operating Time (hrs): 36
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160:
80: 57
40: 588
20: 772
15: 1352
10: 1371
------------
Total: 4140 Prefixes = 1022 Total Score = 14,486,850
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
It was great to get back for the first time since completing the rebuild of the
towers and antennas over two years ago. The windy, corrosive Aruban environment
is very hard on the towers and antennas and they generally last only 10 years or
so unless one puts in a massive effort to scrape and paint them on a regular
basis.
I decided to try a single radio lower power effort for a change and I was
pleased by how loud I felt most of the weekend. Conditions seemed very
favorable from the southern Caribbean.
We were only able to get away for the contest at the last minute and ended up
taking a red-eye that got us to Aruba the day before the contest. That meant I
was going to be starting the contest already somewhat sleep deprived, without
much of an opportunity to evaluate local band conditions and with little to no
time to address any unexpected issues. The single radio with no amp made set-up
relatively quick and simple and, fortunately, all the equipment seemed to be
working as expected.
Fatigue probably contributed to the dumb error I made the second night that cost
me about an hour of operating time when I accidentally cut short what was meant
to be an hour long break (the minimum) by 5 minutes. I don't think I'll make
that mistake again. :(
The big challenge of the weekend was the very high level of local noise. The was
the first time I found it useful (and necessary) to activate the K3
"NR" function for an entire contest (and it did help, just not
enough). It was so bad (10-20db over S9) the first night that I almost
"threw in the towel" Saturday morning when I started up after my first
sleep break and discovered the noise was still very strong even on 10 through 20
meters. Beaming EU, the noise could be managed down to around S8 and
fortunately conditions seem to be good enough that most signals could be heard.
But beaming to NAm was not an option for much of both days with the noise at
10-20db over 9 even with the "NR" engaged. Fortunately, there were a
few hours, mostly late afternoon, when the noise abated (somewhat).
We have our work cut out for us to identify and abate this noise source. The
patterns and characteristics of the noise are unusually baffling. As I write
this, it is "only" S6 on 15 meters in the NAm direction, a huge
improvement over this past weekend but still much higher than in past years.
Despite the noise challenge, I ended up having a lot of fun. It was great to
have so many old friends check in.
Congrats to Rich, N6KT/PJ4R, on the impressive effort from their new mega
station on nearby Bonaire. He sounded great all weekend.
As always, thanks for all the Qs!
73,
John,
W6LD/P40L
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