[3830] CQWW SSB P40A(KK9A) SOAB LP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB

Call: P40A
Operator(s): KK9A
Station: P40A

Class: SOAB LP
QTH: Aruba
Operating Time (hrs): 44
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:   45     6       17
   80:  272    18       62
   40: 1001    24       92
   20: 1685    27      105
   15: 1525    28       95
   10:  816    16       23
------------------------------
Total: 5344   119      394  Total Score = 8,070,000

Club: 

Comments:

I arrived at my Aruba home about a week before the contest.  Even though there
are some permanent antennas installed, setting up for a contest is still quite
a bit of work.  I needed to string out many ground radials under the 160m
vertical, install the 80m dipole, pennant and short Beverage antennas.   There
are also no transceivers at the house and I had to set up a SO2R station in a
bedroom.  Fortunately everything worked perfectly and I had time to work on the
house a little before my wife arrived on Tuesday afternoon.  Unfortunately rain
and thunderstorms moved into the area and remained for much of the trip,
however we still managed to have a nice vacation time together.   We enjoyed
hand feeding the fish while snorkeling at Baby Beach, and had some very nice
dinners. On Friday the sky cleared up a little and we enjoyed relaxing on Palm
Beach near all of the hotels, which is how I like to prepare for a contest.  I
started the contest on 20m and the band stayed productive for about 1 1/2
hours.  I then switched to the low bands for the remainder of the evening. 
They were noisy and working stations on 80m and 160m was definitely a struggle
running LP, but luckily 40m was in good shape.  Around sunrise, I switched back
to 20m and ran a number of European stations for several hours and then switched
to 15m to run Europe on that band.   About an hour later, (around 1430z) I
discovered a little opening on 10m.  My rates on 15m were good, and I hated
switching bands, however at this point in the sunspot cycle 10m is
unpredictable and I took whatever opening I could find.  10m was slow at this
point, but every new multiplier was exciting.  I later went back to 15m and ran
Europe some more.  When that slowed down (around 1730z) I turned the antennas
toward the US and ran them for the first time in the contest on 15m.  The rates
were fantastic - from 1800z to 1859z I made 325 QSOs.  About an hour later 10m
opened nicely into the US yielding a rate of over 200 QSOs per hour.  On the
second day of the contest the low bands were even noisier and I also had some
local thunderstorms creating QRN.  The thunderstorms also made operating
uncomfortable so I decided to take a break for a meal, shower and nap. When I
returned to the radio the thunderstorms had passed and I was refreshed.   Rates
were noticeably slower on the second day and I was able to spend more time
hunting for multipliers.   Some Caribbean stations were difficult to work on
the back of their beam, but with two radios I was still able to run stations
while slowly breaking the pileups.  CQ WW is a great contest with much activity
from all over the world and I had a fun time participating in this event.   On
Monday after the contest the temporary antennas were removed, the station was
disassembled and the house was put back to its normal condition.   My wife
helped a lot with this by rolling up all of the wires and ropes.   Later that
evening we celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary at the Flying Fishbone, a
very nice restaurant on the beach - actually our table was in the water.  It
was nice to see W2GD / P40W again.  He’s been operating this contest from
Aruba for decades and has certainly given me a lot of helpful advice.   Aruba
is a nice vacation and contesting spot and I am fortunate that I was able to do
both during this trip.  I would like to thank everyone for the QSOs.  I would
also like to thank my QSL manager, WD9DZV for all of his assistance.

73,
John 
john at p40a.com 

Antenna Picture and description: http://www.qrz.com/p40a


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