[3830] CQWW CW N8II SOAB HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

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

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: WV
Operating Time (hrs): ~27 HR

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:   51    13       26
   80:  134    17       58
   40:  221    26       81
   20:  876    27      107
   15:  218    21       76
   10:   22     9       14
------------------------------
Total: 1522   113      362  Total Score = 2,045,825

Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club

Comments:

As has been said before, that was fun! Especially when compared to SS;
 I started working the SS in 1972,   first WW was in '75 or maybe '76
 from W3FA, so SS burnout is a factor.

    As usual, I was pretty whipped by Friday, no holiday on Thanksgiving
 for me, just more work than usual. My daughter wanted to go shopping, so
 being a good dad, we visited Kohl's which wasn't really that crowded at
 6PM; returned about 0015Z, fired up at 0037Z. Eu was barely in there
 from the Mediterranean area on 40, 20 was only open to VE3 on Es, so it
 was down to 160 for some DX'ing for 30 minutes. 3X5A was easy for a new
 one, worked 2 HR's, only Eu were S57M, and loud SV3RF. Around 0130 it
 was up to 80 where condx were below a normal night, but there was a
 decent amount to work. A lot of the Eu runners were being answered by
 Eu totally inaudible here. PY was pretty loud in the midst of their
 summer and V51AS was as loud as the loud Europeans; ZS4TX was much
 louder than Eu at twice the distance, first call! 160 later was poor,
 but was able to work a couple of Eu along with multiple CN's and
 a few Caribbean stations. No running was possible on 80M while I was
 operating all 3 nights, but I QRT'ed before Eu sunrise.

   Having no real chance at being competitive, I slept in until 1230Z.
Needless to say, the house was pretty full on 20, by then. I had a
decent run around 14049 for about a half hour, then it dried up. Around
1335, I decided to try 15 which was barely open to Eu. By the time I
swept thru the band picking up AF (6W, 3DA0, 5H, 3X5A) and Med area Eu,
it was improving. I actually managed a decent run which surprised me
with the limited area in Eu that was open. SM7YEA (rare for condx like
this), GW, SP, HB9, E7, CO2NB and TA1AN all called in. The condx dropped
down at 1500, so back to S&P, then a run on 20 at 1600 which featured a
good rate but enough key clicking QRM to make it miserable to try and
copy the really weak ones. Signals seemed really weak compared to higher
sunspot years and I tired of trying to dig them out by 1720,
so S&P'ed the big guns which were fading fast except SW Eu. I took
some time off to eat and walk the dog in the afternoon and was slowed
down by the departing Shepherd U football fans. 15 and 20 were still
full of unworked mults at 2115Z, so I didn't make 40 until 2215. I ran
less than 10 stations before deciding that S&P was going to bear more
fruit, it was slow. Condx were better on both 80 and 40 than the night
before, but not much of any Eu on 160. The casual ops in Eu were
catching some shut eye, so running on 80 was just about nil for me, but
the Eu big guns were pretty loud. 40 stayed open to the Eu Med area
thru the evening with good signals as well as some very loud AF and SA.
The mults kept piling up enough to stick with it till 0345Z. Nothing
that rare was worked except 4L and D2 on 40. I had one stretch of 5
double mults within about 9 Q's on 40 and found 3G1X to wrap it up.
My score was about 850K by then.

   The next morning the low bands were poor to put it mildly around
sunrise. I made it up to 20 at 1215 and found a spot low in the band
and had the mother of all runs. It sounded like a VHF contest at first
with weak signals and I had essentially no QRM for 3 hours! Worked 75
Q's in the 45 min till 13Z, then had a 136 and 148 hour. I had only run
about 170 Eu's Saturday on 20, so was pretty much fresh meat. The only
negatives were S3 QRN and weak signals, but 1 CQ usually brought a
couple of decent strengthened callers, not worth trying to dig them out.
I apologize for not hearing all of the Eu calling, but the noise cut
out the weak ones. I'll call the electric company again. 15 was about
the same old guys as yesterday, so up to 10M where the band was the
best it was all weekend = open. V51AS was booming in, nice to hear a
resident DX op operating the contest seriously. All of my 10M mults
and all but 2 of the Q's were worked in the half hour starting 1612Z.
If you missed this opening from the mid-Atlantic area, you didn't work
much. 20 stayed open maybe a bit later than Saturday, but the even the
big gun Germans were weak by 1730. Once 20 closed it was scrape the
bottom. Not a whole lot new on 15, only worked FO8ER and multitude of
KH6's in OC the whole test. 20 produced some nice mults, but no VK or
other OC via LP. I set an infamous record of working NO JA's on any
band and breaking 2 Mil, not too many ops can claim that! 80 and 160
were even worse than the rest of the test.
  Without all of the Eu's active with small stations, this
contest would have really been slow. Thanks for your support and the
Q's! After the 20M run Sunday, I started to push harder to do well.
I was surprised to break 2 Mil having only about 700K at the mid-point.
Can't wait for Eu back on 10M in a couple of years!


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