[3830] CQWW SSB N8II SOAB LP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB

Call: N8II
Operator(s): N8II
Station: N8II

Class: SOAB LP
QTH: WV
Operating Time (hrs): 34

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:   10     5        6
   80:   32    13       16
   40:   80    13       42
   20:  275    33      111
   15:  348    28      107
   10:  628    26      110
------------------------------
Total: 1473   118      392  Total Score = 2,115,480

Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club

Comments:

First, I can't help but congratulate Ken, K4ZW and Paul's crew at K4JA in VA
for some truly incredible scores. Ken came within a smidgin (100K) of K1AR's
all time record set in the days of wine and sunpots in '99 from NH. VA ain't
no New England, congrats on the moral victory and hope it's #1 USA. Paul's
crew made over 13 Mil with over 500 Q's on 75M thru the incredibly loud QRN
the first night, which one would hope would be enough for # 1. Hats off to Ken
who survived on 2 hrs rest! I just can't do that kind of self deprivation and
my station isn't good enough for serious all band efforts, so I chose to
compete again in a much less comeptitve category.

Before the contest on Wed/Thu, I spent over 4 hours adding a couple of radials
to my elevated 75M vertical and tuning it for phone. It turned out not to be
worth the effort. I worked only a couple of Eu and felt like I was wasting my
time on 75M except for a quick sweep across the band before sunrise Sunday.
KH6 was my best DX. I was still feeling a little tired from the effort by the
start of the contest and my youngest daughter kept me busy running her around
when I wanted to rest.

At 2350Z, I checked 20M to find very loud southern Europeans all over the
place! It was a no brainer to start on 20 for me; I was able to run a few,
but my longest run was about 20 min at a slow rate. 15M JA's were not that
loud at 24Z, but by 0040 had improved. I found it tough to break the JA
pile-ups with LP and couldn't work the other rare ones at all like XX9, VR2,
and HL, and DU, so I was back to 20 in 20 min. The African activity was truly
amazing this year, but signals on all bands were weak to moderate most of the
time. Not so on 20M the first 4-5 hours, I had all of the "terrible 30's"
zones in the log except 32 and 36 by about 0400Z. There were at least 2 very
active stations from every African zone including SU9BN and ST2S from 34!
Condx were oustanding on 20 the first 5 hours except not much of anything
from over the pole. I had reasonable success on 40, but didn't get all of
the loud stations I heard and some were of course working simplex. 75 and
160 were a literal sea of summertime level noise, the worst I can remember in
the WW.

Saturday AM brought disappointment as condx were obviously somewhat disturbed.
Condx the week before the WW were incredibly good on 10/15 with loud Northern
EU,Middle East and even a loud VU on 10M,a shame things didn't hold for the
WW.
15 M was slow to open and northen EU was very weak at best, no Russians heard
around 12Z. When I first jumped up to 10 around 1220Z, only CT8T and CU2Z were
loud from Eu. Gradually the band slowly crept more and more open to Eu, but
never further north than DL direct path. I spent way too much time on 10
and never could run at rate equal to my S&P rate. I didn't checkthe rate meter
like I should have being a bit too punchy from a short night's sleep. When I
returned to 15, northern Eu was all over the place, but it wasn't long til
they faded into the sunset. The rest of the day was endless S&P between
10/15/20M with plenty of fresh meat to work. The low ends of 20/15 were less
productive with lots of USA stations in the CQ mode. Saturday evening seemed
pretty much back to normal condx with better polar prop. I worked about 5-7
JA's on ten, but couldn't break pile-ups on anything else rarer in that
direction. I was able to work the JA's on 15, some with quite a struggle
and at least added 4F1 (DU) and D70 (HL). 20M was then milked for everying
I could find over the pole around 01Z including JA, EY, JT, and UA in zones
17 & 18. I couldn't break the pile up on VU2WAP and despite S7 from EX9A and
S6 from UN5G, they kept CQ'ing "in my face". I neglected 80 and 160 Saturday
night, I was just too pooped after being in the chair virtually all day except
2 quick meals.

Sunday morning was far superior up to about 15Z. 15 opened like a house of
fire by sunrise, and I was able to slowly run a few high in the band adding
quite a few new mults. Around 1230Z, I went to 10M and immediately determined
it was a different day totally from Saturday. I was only able to hold a
choice spot for about 30-40 minutes before S4 RK4FD (S9 in Eu of course) and
USA QRM ruined my run; the peak rate meter was near 190. I never heard a UA9
but did work quite a few Moscow area Russians and YI9HT called in with a good
signal. OH,OH0,LA,SM,LY were worked all with good sigs. After that, I was
never in a long or speedy run on 10, but I kept plugging away alternating
between run and S&P. Around 1530Z, my CQ goose was cooked. 10-20M all seemed
to close very early compared to Saturday except to F/EA. After 18Z, things
stayed pretty slow and despite finding a clear spot around 14315, I wasn't
able to run but a handful of Eu. I had persistent line noise all day Sunday
as high as S6 peaking West which made digging for the Q's tougher. It does
seem as though activity has decreased signifigantly from JA and SA compared
to 10 years or less ago.

Overall, it was fun, but a lot of effort. I doubt if I try this again until
10M again is wide open. There seems to be increasing Trend to trust the
computer fill-ins rather than one's ears. I prpobaly wasted at least 15
minutes clarifying my zone because everyone's computer defaults to Zone 4
for 8th call area stations. For the record, all of West Virginia IS IN ZONE
5 ! Come on guys, four and five do not sound that similar.


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