[3830] H44MX CQ CW score and comments

[Paul Young]

                   CQ WORLD WIDE DX CONTEST -- 1999


      Call: H44MX (K1XM op)          Country:  Solomon Islands
      Mode: CW                       Category: Single Operator
      Zone: 28                                 Low power


      BAND     QSO    ZONES   COUNTRIES

      160        4      3       3
       80      161     19      20
       40      699     25      68
       20      558     29      74
       15      525     31      65
       10     1110     30      55 
     ---------------------------------------------------

     Totals   3057    137     285 = 3,788,716

Club Affiliation: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Equipment Description:

   Icom IC-706 IIg

   160/80/40  Butternut HF-2V with 160 kit and top hat, 20 radials
   20/15/10   Homebrew vertical, two elevated radials per band

Comments:

   Pathetic country multiplier, huh?  As a comparison, K1RO, the top
   YCCC low power US station, worked 17 less zones than I but 124
   more countries.  That's the joy of low power from the Pacific.

   On the other hand, here are the low power records for Oceanea and
   for zone 28:

     NH6T(N0AX) 2,461,536  2713 119 189 -- 1993

     9V1YC      2,679,948  2772 144 320 -- 1992

   I had a couple problems:

     The IC-706 IIg took a fall onto the tile floor.  It worked but
     the main tuning knob shaft encoder was broken.  This made the
     main tuning control completely unusable.  I used the computer to
     change bands and used the up and down buttons on the handheld
     microphone to tune within bands.  The Band Up button was also
     broken and sometimes the radio would start switching bands all
     by itself.

     We had power outages most days.  The electric company had one
     scheduled for the first four hours of the contest.  I searched
     for a rental generator.  The only thing available was a 5KW
     diesel.  To start it you attach the crank, turn it until the
     engine is spinning, throw the switch, and pull the crank out
     before it rips your hand off.  It took four people and 45
     minutes to get it running, and so I missed the beginning of
     the contest.

     Some of the radials dropped off the low band vertical.  This
     changed the resonant frequency enough that I could not load it
     on 80 and 160.  All but three QSOs on those bands were made
     the second night after I fixed the radials.

   Being so close to the equator the bands actually folded in the
   middle of the day.  It happened suddenly, almost like a switch
   was thrown.  It was worse the first day than the second.

   Since I was single-op and had no amplifier or antenna rotor it
   was easy to change bands.  I usually complied with requests
   to QSY even if the station was not a multiplier.  A big USA
   multi-multi had me QSY six times near the end of the contest,
   all for one lousy QSO.  I won't mention callsigns but Tim owes
   me big time.

   I used WriteLog as my logging program.  My notebook computer has
   a 6G hard drive and I recorded the entire contest.

   The Vatican is not in zone 28.

   Some American operators seem to believe that the way to work a
   station is to call continuously.  We're now worse than the
   Europeans.  I had to go split a few times - apologies to anyone
   who was operating 1 KHz above me when I did it.  At least on CW
   I don't get many people sending their last two letters!

   The secret to breaking a record is in picking a record that is easy
   to break.


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