[3830] CQWW CW K4XD SOAB(A) HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: K4XD
Operator(s): K4XD
Station: K4XD

Class: SOAB(A) HP
QTH: Raleigh, NC
Operating Time (hrs): 31.5

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:   22     7        9
   80:  149    16       66
   40:  249    24       92
   20:  385    29      114
   15:  103    21       54
   10:   12     7        9
------------------------------
Total:  920   104      344  Total Score = 1,123,584

Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club

Comments:

My goals were to get 1M points (a first for me in any contest).  Big improvement
over the 215K from 2006, my first CQWW CW.  Had a lot of fun, but would have had
more fun if I could have done some running -- well, actually I did try to run a
few times but out of 920 Q's, I think I had about 915 from S&P!  

Had fun with the real-time scoreboard at getscores.org, would be nice to see
more people participate.  If you use one of the supported logging programs, it
is effortless once installed.  

My 160M and 80M antennas are still suffering from intermittent jumps in SWR
that trip the SWR fault protection on the Tokyo Hy-Power amp.  I used the
AL-80B on those bands and other than one tune-up that resulted in that "burning
electrical stuff" smell, all worked well.  Hmm, last time that happened, the
AL-80B had to go into the shop... hope I caught it in time, so far so good.

I did try re-routing the 160M antenna away from tree branches and replacing the
insulators but no joy, still having the same problem.  However, moving the
antenna around did give me that "man is this going to work great" feeling you
get whenever you put up a new antenna or "improve" an existing one.  

When the contest got started at 7PM local I scanned 20M briefly and decided to
go straight to 40M.  After realizing within the first 15 minutes that I was not
going to get anything going running, I began the "2 Day S&P Marathon."  Eight
hours of grinding it out on 40M and 80M, with a quick side-trip to 160, netted
me a whopping 239 Q's by 3:30AM local time, at which point I decided it was
time for a break -- after all, can't miss the sunrise grayline!  Got about 4
hours sleep and missed the grayline... 6 Q's on 40M and off I went to 20. 
Since I was S&P-bound, my M.O. was the same for each band.  I used WriteLog's
bandmap and spot list, and double-clicked my way through the band, trying to
get all the mults first.  It's kind of fun watching the spots in the bandmap
become dark blue.  When the bandmap was almost all dark blue, I'd change bands
on the radio and see if the "next logical band" had some good prospects (lots
of yellow and light blue spots).  If it did, I'd work that one until the rate
dropped or the band map was all dark blue again.

Yes, I do remember how to use the knobs on the radio!  But I think the visual
aids go along with the audio ones quite nicely.  Between the spectrum display
on the Icom 756 Pro II, WriteLog's bandmap, and MRP 40's nice visual display of
a CW pileup, there were several ways to get "the big picture" at a glance. 
These all really help improve my efficiency.

My wife and I went to see a movie Saturday afternoon -- she is very supportive
about this "contest thing" but after all, it is a holiday weekend here in the
US.  I wanted her to remember more about it than what the back of my head looks
like when I'm sporting headphones.  I checked it out in the mirror once, it's
not so great.

I went through the 15 - 20 - 40 - 80 progression again Saturday night, ending a
bit after local midnight as things were getting slow (including my brain).  Got
up Sunday morning about an hour earlier than Saturday, and after a short, not
very productive spin through 40M, I headed up to 20M, earlier than I normally
would think to go there.  Good move!  The band was full of stations, and
miracle of miracles, they could hear me too, on my homebrew hexbeam at 10
meters.  This was the most fun hour of the contest -- I could work stations
about as fast as I could click on the bandmap, fine tune the radio, and send my
call. Although the peak hour was only 57 Q's, the rate hit 120/hr for a few
minutes.  Good stuff!

Things slowed down for the rest of the day, with a little fun on 10M around
local noon.  I got into hamming 18 months ago, so at this point my DXCC total
for 10M is only 39 entities heard.  Funny, but now that small number of
entities includes 3X!

Although there were a handful of stations that were S5 or better and couldn't
hear me at all, there were far more who managed to copy my exchange when it was
obvious I must have been an S1 or S2 there.  Kudos and thanks!  You have to
appreciate a DX station's patience with "yet another K" station that adds only
QSO points to their totals, while giving me a nice mult.  

Stuff I'm learning:

* Deductions are not a good thing -- I've gotten over being shy about asking
for repeats.  Hopefully not to excess.  I also repeated my call in the exchange
when the pileup covered my call as sent by the other station.

* Timing is everything.  In most pileups, I was able to get through by slipping
my call in quickly when the mob stopped calling.  My apologies for the times I
stepped on the DX.  Oops. 

Thanks to everyone for the Q's and another fun contest!  CU next time.

73,
Rowland K4XD


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