[3830] CQWW CW K8CC M/S HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: K8CC
Operator(s): K8BB, K8CC, KK8I, W8LU, W8MJ
Station: K8CC

Class: M/S HP
QTH: MI
Operating Time (hrs): 48

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:   62    18       59
   80:  698    30      108
   40:  677    34      121
   20: 1222    33      132
   15:  115    27       83
   10:    8     6        6
------------------------------
Total: 2782   148      509  Total Score = 5,123,286

Club: Mad River Radio Club

Comments:

We had some special motivation for working the contest this year.  Our
contesting colleague, Uli, KK8I/DL2HBX, who has been with us the past 5+ years
working in Detroit for Volkswagen, will be moving back to DL-land next summer
so this was his last CQWW from the USA.

Conditions were very strange from W8 this year.  The first day, 40M sounded the
worst I've ever heard it from this QTH.  The European big guns were only S2-3
and would CQ in our face when we called with 1500W and a 3L full-size yagi at
120'!  JAs were just whispers the first day, and just not workable. 
Fortunately, 40M got better to Europe after their sunrise, and was much better
the second day.  We were still getting European answers to CQs in the 10Z hour,
so we made up some ground.  EU was also good in the late stages of the contest.

OTOH, 80M was the best I've ever heard it from here.  Many EU were S9 on the
meter, and we could run steady streams of EU like it was 40M (which was a good
thing since 40M was so bad).  A big thrill was finding 8Q7DV CQing on 3571 all
by himself at the end of the contest.  OTOH, the 80M 7X0RY pileup was a train
wreck, as USA stations would continue to call even while he was transmitting.

We were initially at a disadvantage on 160M.  Our usual antenna consists of
shunt-feeding the 140' 15M tower, which works VERY WELL.  However, the shunt
feed failed two weeks previous in SS phone.  The initial suspect was the vacuum
gamma capacitor, but an ohmmeter check showed an open circuit between the gamma
drop wire and the tower.  K8CC went up the tower Thanksgiving morning to
replace the drop wire, but some of the hardware at the top was rusted and
snapped off when trying to make the repair.  Plan B was to extend the 65' high
80M dipole to 160M, but performance during the first night of the contest was
very, very, poor.  Saturday morning we scrounged up enough replacement hardware
to fix the shunt feed, and Saturday afternoon KK8I went up the tower and
replaced the feed wire.  Our performance on 160M the second night was much,
much improved.

Friday afternoon, KK8I came out early and we re-erected a set of K9AY loops for
160M receive.  Admittedly, these aren't as good as beverages, but they were far
away from the transmitting antennas and seemed to perform as advertised and
were a valuable aid to receiving on 160M.

Congrats to the teams at W2FU and K5NA for their fine scores.

73,

Dave/K8CC, Don/K8BB, Uli/KK8I, Ken/W8LU and Ken/W8MJ

Disclaimer:

No Elecraft K3s nor CW Skimmers were used in generating this contest score
We're strictly old-tech with our ten year old FT-1000Ds :-)


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