CQ WORLD WIDE PREFIX CONTEST -- 2004
Call: KQ2M
Category: Single Operator UNASSISTED
Power: High Power 36 hours
Band: All Band
Mode: SSB
Country: United States
BAND QSO QSO PTS PTS/Q PREFIXES
160 0 0 0.0 0
80 322 1188 3.7 147
40 131 484 3.7 39
20 1545 3502 2.3 498
15 888 2036 2.3 330
10 105 269 2.6 26
--------------------------------------
Totals 2991 7479 2.5 1040 = 7,778,160
Comments:
This is definitely WAAAAAYYYYYY late but it was today or never! :-)
First my congratulations to K4XS (WK4R) and K4ZW (KN1DX) for their great
efforts and
competition. Since WPX SSB has always been my favorite contest, it is
wonderful to see
serious big gun competitiors starting to make this an annual event. This is
an incredibly fun
contest with A LOT of strategy, and anyone, small fry or big gun, can play
and have a good time free of a lot of the qrm, crud and general insanity of
the major DX contests (except for 40M which is still a horror show even in
this contest!)
As usual, this contest and getting ready for it was an adventure. After the
aborted efforts of
ARRLDX CW AND ARRLDX SSB, I was determined to get on "for real" in this one.
This meant that I had to do all the antenna work that I had neglected for
the past 6 months. Well, that wasn't going to happen, but I did have Friday
morning free to rehabilitate my 40 meter wire beam, slingshot ropes through
the trees, replace two of elements, etc. Basically a major rebuild on the
morning of the contest!
Usually this would take about 3 or 4 hours but it was going to be a
challenge doing this in the woods while watching (or not watching) my 4 1/2
year old daughter. Since I was 200 feet away in the woods on a hill and she
was on the lawn out of sight, this was going to be an "act of faith" on both
our parts. It WAS tricky! The worst part was the BUMPER CROP of deer
ticks!, the worst that I could ever remember!
I would walk about 30 feet in the woods, stop and pick one or two off me
with a plier, walk another 30 or so feet, look down, inspect my sweats and
pick off another one or two ticks, etc. This was becoming a REAL SERIOUS
PROBLEM! For those of you NOT familiar with Deer Ticks, an adult deer tick
is about the size of a BARELY VISIBLE speck. And they carry Lyme Disease,
Babesiosis and a host of even nastier diseases. They are carried by Deer
which the ticks feed on, and with the explosion of deer here in Connecticut
(and other parts of the Northeast), the Deer Tick population exploded as
well. In fact, in Newtown (where I live) and two other towns bordering us,
the latest statistic is that 38% of all households are confirmed to have a
family member with Lyme Disease! Again, that is from households where the
family and the doctor KNOW of Lyme disease - Lyme is often undiagnosed or
misdiagnosed and has very horrible long-term ramifications!
So this is what I was facing as I did my antenna work, Friday of the
contest. Fortunately my daughter cooperated, with a few trips down from the
hill, and when I got inside I stripped down to take a quick shower (this is
an absolutely necessity after being in the woods!).
I found 3 ticks crawling on my body! I felt an itch and it turned out to be
a tick that bit me. It was so small that I couldn't even realize it was a
tick. I scraped it off me, put it in a film canister, killed it and then
took it to the Dept of Health, where after a 4 week wait, I found out that
the tick was POSITIVE for Lyme Disease. I called the Connecticut
Agricultural Unit that did the tick testing and said that it was in me for
about 1 hour and they told me that it usually takes 24-36 hours for someone
to become infected by a tick that is POSITIVE for the disease. I was
EXTREMELY lucky; this time. This a lesson for everyone to be aware of where
you are walking and to check yourself VERY thoroughly for ticks after you
have been in the woods, especially in the forests of the Northeast.
After the "fun" of this adventure, and feeling tired from the outside work
and chasing my daughter, I spent the next 1 1/2 hours setting up the
station, dealing with amp failures and fixing equipment. Now I was ready,
but exhausted! I had no chance for sleep before the contest and with
conditions deteriorating rapidly, I knew that I needed to operate basically
all night starting on 15 and staying there for as long as possible since the
JA's, if any, were going to disappear quickly for me. You DO NOT want to
face the prospects of 24 hours of contest operation, exhausted at the start!
I had a brief 15 meter run and then it was time to pound it out on 20 which
was pretty dismal and fading fast. The 4's and 5's were killing me! With a
high flux and high aurora, the bands were open if you were far enough South
but in Connecticut you had to be happy with the crumbs. After a few hours
of struggle, I went to 80 to try for some Europeans. 80 wasn't bad, but the
heavy aurora knocked down signals by many s-units and the added qrn
from an off-shore coastal storm caused frustration on both ends.
KERRASSSHHHHHHHH and then one or two letters and then KEERRRRRASSHHHHHHH
again!
The weirdest part was the "hollow" sound that most of the EU stations had.
This happens occasionally when cndx are poor and signal strengths are weak.
You can hear the guys calling, but understanding what they are saying is
tough because it sounds like they are
talking through a tube! I S & P'd with both radios and called everything,
but quickly ran out of stations to work. Even with the 4-square turned to
the West, I couldn't run anything and I went to sleep about 0630z.
20 was just awful at 1030z and 11z and 12z were horrible. I waited
desperately for 15 to open to EU, but I couldn't get much going until about
1430z. The Solar Flux and Sunspots were very high but the constant
unremitting aurora of 8, 9 and 10, just suffocated the bands for me. I
worked 15 hard and had two good hours and two okay hours
mixed in with constant S & P. I had 2 1/2 good hours on 20 from 19z till
about 2130z, corresponding with briefly lower A & K indices and an Aurora of
"only" 8, but then the bands shut down.
It was FUTILITY from 2230z till 0330z. I was weak, the bands were mostly
dead, and 80 which was my only hope, was just buried in QRN and terrible
QSB. It was IMPOSSIBLE! 40, the only band open to EU, was the worst pit of
crud, qrm and qrn that I can ever remember. It is truly amazing to tune
constantly across the band for 20
minutes and only be able to copy, with GREAT effort, about 15 callsigns!
Stations were 2 and 3 deep and not listening to each other, many with their
processors cranked to cause maximum distortion and splatter. IT WAS UGLY!
My 40-m wire beam was like a rowboat in the ocean. I was pushed all over
the place and did not stand a chance of running anything. I even had
trouble beating out the West Coast to work Europe. How humbling! I packed
it in early and prayed for conditions to improve. I was already about 300
q's behind WK4R, KN1DX and K5TR and I had no doubt that I was behind in
mults too.
1030z was just AWFUL on 20! 11z was ok but then 15 DID NOT OPEN! Unable to
run on 20 after 1230z, there was little that I could do. Aurora was now
"Pegged" at 10 for hours, and I mostly S & P' dwith both radios. On 15, I
could work an occasional LZ, or other zone 20 station, but that was all!
Finally, I began to hear an IT9, an S5 and I thought 15 was finally going to
open. How bad were conditions? From 12z - 16z, I made only 236 q's!
236 q's is the LOWEST number of q's from 12z-16z that I have ever made in a
DX contest in the past 25 years! And that includes my S & P q's on the 2nd
radio! But I had no more offtime to take and with only one band open, I had
to stay and cq and hope. At 18z, 20 improved and I had a few 70-80 hours.
I took off at 22z and then had a decent 23z hour with great flurry for the
last 15 minutes on 40.
Cndx were just awful for me for the entire weekend. There was little that I
could have done to improve my score. This was the first time I can remember
when it was not possible to work EU stations for all 36 hours and the first
time that it was almost impossible for me to work stateside on 15 during the
daytime! I must have been terribly weak on 20 on Sunday because in the
space of about 4 hours, KM4M, WK4R, KN1DX and K3EST all cqed on top of me!
I think that I got a small "taste" of what it must be like for VY1JA!
I made something like 500 q's on the second radio and there were actually
time periods where there was no one to work on Radio 2 because the other
bands were not open! And then, out of nowhere, something amazing would
happen, like 9M2RPN calling me with a SOLID S9 signal! Or a few JA's
calling me longpath on 20 at 2130z!
I am sure that conditions have to be better next year and I will be back as
usual. I hope to see all of you in 2005!
Vy 73 and tnx for the q's!
Bob KQ2M
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