IARU HF World Championship - 2022
Call: N7WA
Operator(s): N7WA
Station: N7WA
Class: SOABCW HP
QTH:
Operating Time (hrs): 19
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Zones HQ Mults
-------------------------------------
160: 0 0 0 0
80: 6 0 2 0
40: 320 0 20 5
20: 549 0 27 22
15: 240 0 20 2
10: 34 0 7 2
-------------------------------------
Total: 1149 0 66 31 Total Score = 391,395
Club: Western Washington DX Club
Comments:
Forty started with a bang at the start and I had a 100Q's before the first 90
minutes were up. Then it was time to start thinking about going higher up in
frequency. What was interesting was watching the on-line scores for east coast
stations in my same category. They had way more contacts on 10/15m than I had on
40m. Well, maybe that would mean good news as the sun traveled west.
Around 3 hours in, 20m had been good to me, though mostly domestic, and I was
looking to go higher. I hopped to 15m. There were plenty of signals there but it
sure seemed noisy. This was my fate for the rest of day. The noise was only
about S2/3 but the signals were not much louder. The noise would come in slow
cycles up and down. In the troughs, it very quiet but then back up to S2-3. I
don't know if this was geomagnetic conditions. The K was running around 3 and
the A was almost 20. I could work stations but it was very fatiguing. The same
was true for 10m when I tried it about 4 hours in. I tried everything on the K3
Noise Blanker and Noise Reduction to no real effect.
Further problems on 15m. I think Murphy visited in the form of rodents this
winter. The fixed 10/15m antenna did not work when I first switched it in. Some
trouble shooting showed it worked when connected to another position on the
remote switch. My alternate 10/15m antenna was a SteppIr but it wouldn't tune
up. Since both the remote antenna switch cable and the SteppIr control cable are
bundled together, I suspect some wires got chewed. I haven't been on the air,
from home, since the January NAQP and I have trapped several mice in the shack
over that that period. Shame on me for not checking it out earlier. So I was
stuck going SE on 10/15m. Fine for the US and South America but no Europe.
I spent the afternoon going between 20/15m and some occasional 10m. Twenty
developed the same noise pattern. It hadn't been there earlier. I can only hope
it was atmospherics and I haven't gained a new noise source. (It's not there two
days later as I write this.) Again, it just made the job of copying signals very
tiring. I stayed on those three bands until the early evening and then went out
to stream a movie with my wife who had been very patient with my hobby for the
day. About three hours later I was back on 40M which also had the noisy pattern
now. <sigh>
I played on 20/40m for the rest of the test with only a short attempt on 80m.
The bands were open to east Asia and western Europe. My apologies to more than a
few weak stations that returned my call from both regions that I could not
decipher. I could tell you were there but the combination of S2/3 noise with
even weaker signals was tough.
In the end, I was getting pretty rummy and my code copying proficiency was
taking a definite hit. I took a 30 minute nap at 3AM local hour but it didn't
help much. (I should have slept through that movie instead.) Those last two
hours were really tough. I did try 80M. There just didn't seem to be anyone
around.
My goals were to equal or exceed my last foray in the IARU in 2020. That did not
happen but 2020 was an exceptional year. I need to work on my multipler
strategy
too. I was in the low range. I enjoy this test (more so without the noise).
It's different from the winter tests and has different challenges. Particularly,
the challenge of keeping BIC while the sun beckons outside and there is grass to
be mowed.
Now, I think I need to go find some chewed wires...
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