[3830] W2UP CQWW RTTY SOA score (long)

[Barry Kutner]

1998 CQ World-Wide RTTY DX Contest

CALL: W2UP              PA, USA                 
             
Single Op. Assisted (all band only)	

 	 QSOs	Points	Zones	DX:	States	
80m: 	 122	229	8	23	35
40m:	 214	413	19	48	42
20m:	 391	950	28	80	39
15m:	 499	1316	28	79	34
10m:	 239	664	22	63	16

Total:	1465	3572   105     293     166	2014608

Station Description: FT-1000D/Alpha 77Dx/Pentium-60 running 
 Writelog 9.12 with HAL P-38
Antenna(s): 80 - 3 el sloper array, 40 - 2 el Yagi @26m,
 20-10 Phased TH7s @ 10/23m

Comments

I used Writelog for the first time, and really enjoyed the program.
It's a very well thought out program, and the support is excellent.
For example, my first 250 QSOs were off by one hour because I had
the computer set for GMT-England time (which automatically corrects
for Daylight Savings Time). After changing the Win config to 
GMT-Morocco, that was fixed, but I still had 250 Qs to correct. An
e-mail to Wayne, W5XD about this, and within hours Wayne added a
feature to Writelog to permit correcting all 250 QSOs in one mouse
click!  I echo Dick, N1RCT's comments that it was really great the
way it highlighted calls out of the gibberish by comparing it with
the super check partial file. I just started with Writelog a few
weeks ago, and didn't have time to hook up a second radio, but will
definitely do it for next year. (Also need a bigger monitor -  a 15
inch screen just doesn't show enough at one time).

I had K1NG's (op KI1G) record breaking score of last year sitting in 
front of me the whole weekend as a goal. When I saw a K index of 9 
and A index of 98 just before the contest, my heart sank. Things 
were
off to a pretty slow start due to lousy condx, especially on the 
higher bands. The only positive the first night was a decent peak 
on 80m around eastern Europe's sunrise. The high bands were 
mediocre
at best throughout Saturday, as well. 10m had very spotty (and 
interesting) openings. I saw 9K2HN spotted on packet, and went to 
listen for him. He was very weak with the beam east, so I tried
southeast over South Africa, which is usually where we beam 
Europe
when the band really isn't open. To my surprise, direct path was 
best.
Then had very regional openings for the next hour or two: a group of 
Russians, then Italians, then ONs, etc. Saturday night was even 
worse
on 40/80, and I went to bed about 11 PM. Things were looking up 
Sunday
morning when I worked some Pacific stuff, and even 2 JAs on 40 - 
very 
rare from this QTH. As usual, I heard K5DJ running JAs like
there was no end to it, and I could just barely hear the loudest ones.
It's interesting that others commented on the good condx for the
start of the contest. It sure didn't seem that way here.
Sunday turned out to be a good day, with excellent European 
openings
on 10 and 15. 20 was very poor to Europe on Saturday, but 
recovered
for Sunday late afternoon. There were times when Europe was 
workable
on 20, 15, and 10 at the same time, and I took advantage of that
moving a few stations for new multipliers. Speaking of multipliers,
I found it a real thrill to catch stations like HS0 for a new
mult, but the fact a mult is just a mult was put in perspective when
the next station I worked was in Ohio, and also a mult! It just was
not the same thrill. I was hoping to catch up on 40 and 80m mults
during the last hour or two of the contest, but thunderstorms in the
area made it impossible to copy all but the strongest stations.
I don't know if it were condx, or the fact my beam was mostly pointed
east, but I found stateside activity to be way down compared with
past years. There were quite a few stations I worked on 4 bands,
and a bunch on 5 bands too. I think Eddie was getting nervous 
about a big bar tab at Dayton, and therefore I missed P40RY on 80 :.)
With K1NG's score still in front of me, I managed to come
within 6K of his high claimed score of 1997 (though it was reduced
to 1.985M in the final results). It's up to the log checkers now!
73 Barry
--
Barry Kutner, W2UP              Internet: w2up at mindspring.com
Newtown, PA         FRC         alternate: barry at w2up.wells.com

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