[3830] CQWW CW W6YX(N7MH) SOAB HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: W6YX
Operator(s): N7MH
Station: W6YX

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 38
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:    1     1        1
   80:  138    24       51
   40:  605    31       97
   20:  653    34      102
   15:  183    23       49
   10:   36     4        4
------------------------------
Total: 1616   117      304  Total Score = 1,773,252

Club: Northern California Contest Club

Comments:

We were hosting family for Thanksgiving so I decided not to go the DXpedition
route this year and instead try a SOAB effort from near home for CQWW CW. 
Thanks to the other W6YX contesters for letting me do a single-op from the
station.  I remember doing a SOSB-15 effort in the late 70's in CQWW, but this
was my first attempt at full-time SOAB.

I arrived at the station a few hours before 0000Z to set things up.  After
turning on the radios it became clear that none of the big monoband Yagis for
10, 15, and 20 were working.  After trying to resolve the problem in the shack
I concluded that it was probably a feedline issue and I wouldn't be able to fix
it before the contest started.  That left me with a rotatable C31XR and smaller
monobanders fixed in the direction of the Caribbean and South America for 20,
15 and 10.

The rotator on the C31XR got a workout over the weekend as I had to rotate it
to work anyone outside of the limited beamwidth of the fixed monobanders. 
Fortunately the M2 4-element 40 was working and I realized near the middle of
the contest that I could use it on 15 meters to give me a second rotatable
high-band antenna.

I intended to operate between 42 and 44 hours and to sleep for a couple hours
each night.  Unfortunately I couldn't fall asleep the night before the contest
and woke up on Friday morning after sleeping for only 4 hours.  Instead of 2 to
3 hours of sleep each night I needed 4 to 5 hours, sleeping through my alarm.  I
missed some high rate hours on 40 and 80 both nights and also missed the peak of
the 20-meter opening to Europe on the first day.  Having to drive home and back
to the shack when I took my breaks also added to my off-time.

I decided that when I was intensively S&P'ing on a worked-out band that it was
useful to CQ on the second radio, even though I might get few callers.  I
hadn't worked anyone on 10 meters with 6 hours to go in the contest so I
started CQing there while I S&P'ed on 20 and 15.  Apparently no one else in
zone 3 had worked anyone on 10 meters either so 32 of my 36 Q's there are
zero-pointers.

I had no 160M transmit antenna available so I thought I'd just run low power on
160 into the 80M inverted vee, using the built-in tuner in the FT1000MP.  I
called and worked N7UA by doing this, but couldn't get a response from any DX
stations so I tried routing through an external tuner so I could run high
power.  I couldn't get an acceptable SWR and ended up only working the single
QSO on 160.

I only worked 3 Europeans (EA/CT/CU) on 15.  I worked mostly western Europeans
on 20 and eastern Europeans on 40.  Several countries were only worked on one
of these two bands.

I spent the last couple of hours trying to run on 15, then 20, with little
success.  I checked out 40 with less than 10 minutes to go and it was wide open
to Europe.  I should have gone to 40 much earlier since I was missing a bunch of
easy mults (like England) and I quickly worked a couple mults that hadn't been
able to hear me the previous evening.

Congrats to everyone on the great scores.

73,
-Mike, N7MH


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