[3830] CQWW CW W4ZV SOSB/160 HP

[webform at b4h.net]

                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: W4ZV
Operator(s): W4ZV
Station: W4ZV

Class: SOSB/160 HP
QTH: NC
Operating Time (hrs): 26

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:  302    21       79
   80:                    
   40:                    
   20:                    
   15:                    
   10:                    
------------------------------
Total:  302    21       79  Total Score = 74,600

Club: Carolina DX Association

Comments:

Very frustrating weekend here.  I could never run except once briefly the last
night around 06-07z, after most of Eastern EU was in daylight.  Signal
strengths were simply never what they should have been and I had great
difficulty in many pileups.  Stations farther north were in and out with
impunity.  I called SV9CVY forever and never did get him...while he answered
K5RX 3 times before Jim realized it.

I believe North was the place to be this weekend...the farther the better.  The
top 3 multi-multis (KC1XX, K3LR and W3LPL) were amazingly within a few QSOs of
each other (385/381/397) and I'm normally much closer to them.  I noticed the
same effect from Europe.  Normally countries bordering the Mediterranean are
the strongest from EU.  This time I missed CT, EA6, IT9, 9H and only worked
5B4AII and LZ9W from zone 20...no SV, YO (YR9P was another experience like
SV9CVY above), 4X, etc.  I must have spent an hour total calling 4L0A on all 3
evenings only to hear him answer VE3EJ's CQ Saturday night.  I won't bore you
with all the countries and zones I heard but didn't work.

Stand by for an incredible score from N7UA...possibly even challenging the
existing USA record.  N7UA is at a latitude about the same as VE1 or VY2 and he
was working *everything* over the pole.  I even heard him calling some stations
not long after my sunset on Sunday afternoon!  When W6/7s see Bob's score, I
hope all will pledge to never whine again.  Under normal conditions when
there's Aurora, South is the place to be.  But when Aurora is calm, being
farther North means you're actually closer to the DX beaming directly through
the Au zone.  Another example of this was OX5AA who was audible almost any time
I tuned the band!  Another example of Northern propagation in quiet
conditions...VY2ZM worked ~90 JAs in one morning run about a week before the
contest!  Congratulations to Bob N7UA who I'm sure won for USA and possibly
broke the record.

I enjoyed using both N1MM and my K3 with diversity for the first time.  Using
Skimmer 1.3 in Blind Mode (legal for unassisted) was a big disappointment.  I
got so many false decoder dots I quit looking at them and just looked at the
waterfall.  Next time I'll probably use PowerSDR's waterfall which doesn't have
the 24 kHz width limitation of Skimmer when used on the K3 output with LP-PAN.

Thanks to everyone for your patience with my weak signal!

73,  Bill  W4ZV


Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/