[3830] KQ2M 2001 CQCW SOABHP Unassisted (long)
Robert Shohet
kq2m at mags.net
Sat Jan 5 17:55:52 EST 2002
CQ WORLD WIDE DX CONTEST -- 2001
Call: KQ2M
Category: Single Operator Unassisted
Power: High Power 36.9 hours operation
Band: All Band
Mode: CW
Country: United States
Zone: 5
BAND QSO QSO PTS PTS/QSO ZONES COUNTRIES
160 12 23 1.92 4 6
80 90 245 2.72 13 47
40 583 1636 2.81 27 83
20 905 2640 2.92 38 104
15 725 2102 2.90 31 110
10 1075 3152 2.93 33 112
--------------------------------------------------
Totals 3390 9798 2.89 146 462 => 5,957,184
All reports sent were 59(9), unless otherwise noted.
Equipment Description:
FT1000MP & Titan (x2)
10 5/5/5/5 Hygain 105CA 23/37/67/101 37' & 101' Rotatable others fixed NE
15 5/5/5/5 Hygain 155CA 29/59/91/109 29' Fixed NE, top three rotatable
20 4/4/4 KQ2M Design 20-4CD 58/84/130 Top rotatable, others fixed NE
40 2/2 Cushcraft 40-CD @ 66/121 both Fixed NE, 3L Wire Beam (NE) @ 50'
80 KQ2M design Inv L 4-square
160 Phased Inv L's
Beverages
260' S
260' W
2 Phased 260' NE
Club Affiliation: FRANKFORD RADIO CLUB
Comments:
I was READY for this one. I had just finished fixed the intermittent
antennas, got the beverages working, set up the station, got decent sleep
before the contest and the xyl and daughter were in Florida. I was READY and
very psyched! I also knew that I had a major project staring me in the eye
due Saturday after the contest. It would require every waking minute of
attention after the contest and post-contest recovery). I decided that I
would deal with that on Monday AFTER the contest.
One problem though, geomagnetic cndx didn't seem to care that I was ready.
Cndx were kinda punk with the everything pointing to a major geomagnetic
event Friday night. At 00z there was already 18db attentuation on 160
according to one propagation website. Not a good sign.
At 00z I started to run on 40 and S/P on 10/15/20. Sigs were noticeably
weak on 40 and were not improving. I kicked the SO2R into high gear and
was compensating for rate with the 2nd radio. After 6 hours I was ahead of
last year and was happy with the way things were going. Then about
0655 the bands started to disappear REAL fast. By 07z most of the dx was
GONE and I started hearing the most amazing and intense pileups on every
SA and Carib station.
I watched the propagation websites as cndx deteriorated. This was not
fun anymore and was rapidly getting worse. By 08z I really lost interest.
The Aurora was at 10 (the maximum) and the magentometer reading was at
564! About 4x the highest number I had ever seen. I stopped working guys
on the 2nd radio and stopped passing mults.
At 09z, 20 became runnable again but the K index was now 9! with a major
proton event and a polar cap absorption (PCA) event in progress.
I continued to work guys halfheartedly for a while, but when 20 started
going away and 15 refused to open, I decided that it was not worth the pain
and went to sleep. The project was vastly more important than the contest
and I might as well be rested to work on it rather than exhausted.
I got up around 1430z and turned all my 15 meter antennas to about 135
degrees where Eu was peaking, and started to run toneless EU cw stations.
This was a real novel challenge. I hung in there as the EU stations
began to peak about 110 degrees and then 90 degrees getting louder in the
process. At 16z I went to 10 and had a big hour (154) but that was all
for Saturday with 15 and 20 providing the only activity after that.
The sunset opening on 40 never materialized and I plodded along on 15 and 20
until I heard a very weak skew-path JA on 10. He peaked about 210 degrees
and was the only zone 25 station that I heard. After a few more minor
flares, I really lost interest and packed it in for the evening at about
02z. I knew that my mult total on 40 - 160 would be very low by not
bothering to operate the second night, but I really did not care anymore.
I called my xyl and watched a movie! until 0445z and then checked cndx
again. At 0515z I went to sleep. Actually I was having fun now. It is
a lot different when you operate semi-seriously and get sleep and do fun
stuff vs. pushing hard every minute with no breaks, almost no sleep and
awful cndx. I was pleased with my decision and vowed to wake up early
to run EU.
At 1045z Sunday I worked a few low-band mults and went to work. Since I
was no longer a serious SO2R entrant, I decided to work on my skills.
I alternated stategies by the hour.... One hour I would focus on running
only one radio for maximum rate, the next I would focus on SO2R intensely,
the next hour I would tune with both radios at the same time. I got quite
a workout! By the end of the afternoon, I was able to run at 160+ and
work guys on the second radio simultaneously. This was a new high water
mark for me and I was really pleased. There was little doubt that getting
some sleep helped me here.
Cndx continued to improve Sunday afternoon and 20 provided a good EU run.
At 2200 I decided to leave 20 and hunt mults and try to run on 10 and 15.
At first that decision was a big mistake as 20 was hot and 15 cndx to
Asia were poor, but I persisted trying to run on 15 and then HS, 3W, 9M and
other great mults began to call in while I was busting pileups on 10.
In fact, for the first time ever, I was able to break every Asian/Far East
pileup on 10 within 3 calls. I was amazed! I picked up 25 mults in
the last two hours, 18 of which were in the last hour! 17 of these 25 mults
were on 10, 13 of which were in the last hour. What an exciting finish!
Overall I was very pleased with how I operated the contest and the level of
my skill improvement since last year. Although I only passed 2 mults the
entire contest, I did make about 1000 band changes and 550 2nd radio
q's in about 32 hours. I felt that I would have been very competitive had
I persevered, but I didn't.
The CQWW is as much a test of endurance as it is a test of skill and
determination. In order to compete at the top level you have to demonstrate
the skill and determination AND be willing to "run through the pain". This
year I did not "run through the pain" and I respect and salute the efforts
of all those who did.
There were many exciting moments in this contest for me like pileup busting
on 10 in the final two hours, working 3B8/DL7MFA on 4 bands, finding all
those rare African mults on 4 bands and Pacific/Asian mults on 3 bands.
After the contest I was pleasantly surprised to see how well I did even with
not operating 11 hours. It was nice not to be exhausted until Wednesday
like usual. As it turned out, it was a very good thing that I "quit" the
contest, as I spent the next five days working continuously while getting
less than 20 hours of total sleep. It would not have been possible to do
this had I pushed all the way in the contest. I made the right choice.
Congrats to N2NT, K5ZD, N9RV, K4XS and all the other guys who worked hard
in CQWWCW! Thanks to everyone for all the qso's and cu in CQWW 2002!
Happy New Year!
73
Bob KQ2M
BREAKDOWN QSO/mults KQ2M CQ WORLD WIDE DX CONTEST Single Operator
HOUR 160 80 40 20 15 10 HR TOT CUM TOT
0 ..... ..... 95/39 1/2 14/21 1/2 111/64 111/64
1 . . 76/7 18/27 6/5 . 100/39 211/103
2 . . 81/10 9/7 5/2 . 95/19 306/122
3 . . 88/6 3/6 10/10 . 101/22 407/144
4 2/3 13/19 29/2 51/22 . . 95/46 502/190
5 4/2 28/15 . 61/9 . . 93/26 595/216
6 2/1 36/11 1/2 30/10 . . 69/24 664/240
7 . 2/2 17/9 16/6 . . 35/17 699/257
8 2/3 6/9 11/3 25/2 ..... ..... 44/17 743/274
9 1/0 . 10/6 78/3 . . 89/9 832/283
10 1/1 2/1 5/5 21/1 1/1 . 30/9 862/292
11 . . 5/3 1/1 4/3 . 10/7 872/299
12 . . . . . . . 872/299
13 . . . . . . . 872/299
14 . . . . 43/24 9/12 52/36 924/335
15 . . . . 78/10 17/16 95/26 1019/361
16 ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... 154/35 154/35 1173/396
17 . . . . 55/11 62/9 117/20 1290/416
18 . . . 31/4 46/7 21/11 98/22 1388/438
19 . . . 94/2 21/5 5/2 120/9 1508/447
20 . . 35/1 30/4 . 8/6 73/11 1581/458
21 . . 45/0 30/5 3/2 . 78/7 1659/465
22 . . . 38/4 14/7 1/0 53/11 1712/476
23 . . 30/5 30/5 . . 60/10 1772/486
0 ..... ..... 1/2 44/12 9/1 1/2 55/17 1827/503
1 . . 35/6 7/0 . . 42/6 1869/509
2 . . . 20/0 . . 20/0 1889/509
3 . . . . . . . 1889/509
4 . . 4/0 4/0 . . 8/0 1897/509
5 . 2/1 13/1 . . . 15/2 1912/511
6 . . . . . . . 1912/511
7 . . . . . . . 1912/511
8 ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... 1912/511
9 . . . . . . . 1912/511
10 . 1/2 1/2 5/0 . . 7/4 1919/515
11 . . 1/1 4/0 75/6 3/3 83/10 2002/525
12 . . . . 11/0 154/8 165/8 2167/533
13 . . . 3/1 . 163/9 166/10 2333/543
14 . . . . . 145/2 145/2 2478/545
15 . . . . 13/3 116/1 129/4 2607/549
16 ..... ..... ..... ..... 28/5 93/1 121/6 2728/555
17 . . . . 59/4 51/2 110/6 2838/561
18 . . . . 110/1 11/4 121/5 2959/566
19 . . . 49/4 54/4 6/3 109/11 3068/577
20 . . . 101/2 14/1 . 115/3 3183/580
21 . . . 91/2 12/1 . 103/3 3286/583
22 . . . 3/0 7/3 42/4 52/7 3338/590
23 . . . 7/1 33/4 12/13 52/18 3390/608
DAY1 12/10 87/57 528/98 567/120 300/108 278/93 ..... 1772/486
DAY2 . 3/3 55/12 338/22 425/33 797/52 . 1618/122
TOT 12/10 90/60 583/110 905/142 725/141 1075/145 . 3390/608
HOUR 160 80 40 20 15 10 HR TOT CUM TOT
0 ..... ..... 54/106 1/80 5/169 0/150 60/111 60/111
1 . . 48/95 9/115 4/80 . 62/97 122/104
2 . . 47/104 8/71 4/71 . 58/98 180/102
3 . . 54/99 1/138 5/117 . 60/101 240/102
4 0/655 10/75 16/106 33/92 . . 60/95 300/100
5 4/61 23/72 . 34/109 . . 61/92 361/99
6 3/39 31/70 3/23 23/79 . . 59/70 420/95
7 . 3/43 32/32 26/37 . . 60/35 481/87
8 3/42 13/28 15/45 29/52 ..... ..... 59/44 540/83
9 1/112 . 9/69 51/92 . . 60/89 600/83
10 1/84 2/65 10/29 38/33 . . 51/35 651/79
11 . . 17/18 2/36 13/18 . 32/19 683/77
12 . . . . . . . 683/77
13 . . . . . . . 683/77
14 . . . . 41/62 8/70 49/64 732/76
15 . . . . 48/98 13/80 60/94 793/77
16 ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... 59/158 59/158 851/83
17 . . . . 30/110 30/123 60/116 912/85
18 . . . 16/118 33/83 12/105 61/97 973/86
19 . . . 49/116 8/154 2/138 59/122 1032/88
20 . . 35/61 19/96 . 7/72 60/73 1092/87
21 . . 31/88 27/67 2/85 . 60/78 1151/86
22 . . . 48/48 12/70 0/120 60/53 1212/85
23 . . 35/52 25/71 . . 60/60 1272/84
0 ..... ..... 6/10 48/55 5/112 1/52 60/55 1332/82
1 . . 44/47 5/88 . . 49/51 1381/81
2 . . . 14/83 . . 14/83 1396/81
3 . . . . . . . 1396/81
4 . . 4/53 8/31 . . 12/39 1408/81
5 . 2/77 10/80 . . . 11/80 1419/81
6 . . . . . . . 1419/81
7 . . . . . . . 1419/81
8 ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... 1419/81
9 . . . . . . . 1419/81
10 . 5/13 9/7 10/31 . . 23/18 1442/80
11 . . 0/129 9/27 45/99 1/200 55/90 1498/80
12 . . . . 6/106 54/171 60/165 1558/83
13 . . . 2/103 . 58/168 60/166 1618/87
14 . . . . . 60/145 60/145 1678/89
15 . . . . 5/163 55/126 60/129 1738/90
16 ..... ..... ..... ..... 18/96 43/130 61/120 1798/91
17 . . . . 25/139 34/89 60/110 1858/92
18 . . . . 58/115 3/215 61/120 1919/93
19 . . . 22/135 34/95 5/74 61/108 1980/93
20 . . . 53/115 6/141 . 58/118 2038/94
21 . . . 52/104 8/94 . 60/103 2098/94
22 . . . 6/30 9/46 46/55 61/51 2159/93
23 . . . 4/95 44/45 10/75 58/54 2217/92
DAY1 0.2/64 1.4/64 6.7/79 7.3/78 3.4/87 2.2/127 ..... 21.2/84
DAY2 . 0.1/29 1.2/45 3.9/87 4.4/97 6.2/129 . 15.7/103
TOT 0.2/64 1.5/61 8.0/73 11.2/81 7.8/93 8.4/129 . 36.9/92
--
FAQ on WWW: http://www.contesting.com/FAQ/3830
Submissions: 3830 at contesting.com
Administrative requests: 3830-REQUEST at contesting.com
Problems: owner-3830 at contesting.com
More information about the 3830
mailing list