[3830] CQWW CW KA3DRR SOAB(A) LP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: KA3DRR
Operator(s): KA3DRR
Station: KA3DRR

Class: SOAB(A) LP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 30

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:   0      0        0
   80:   5      4        4
   40:  44     11       12
   20:  38      9        8
   15:   6      4        4
   10:   0      0        0
------------------------------
Total:  93     28       28  Total Score = 13,776

Club: Northern California Contest Club

Comments:

CQ WorldWide DX CW 2008 in no less terms rocked my transceiver and scorched my
wire antenna. The build-up leading into the major of major DX contests was
eagerly anticipated in the shackadelic. Fun? Absolutely. Exciting? For sure. I
enjoyed an ionospheric weekend of ham radio fun. 

I learned from my CQWWDX that is, my station is built for searching and
pouncing (SP) until Helios revives the high bands like 15m or 10m. Even then,
with the phenomenon of network swarming, penetrating near instantaneous
pile-ups requires a new SP strategy. I'm beginning to pay attention to 'spot
time' as 'spot decay' in one N1MM dialogue box. 

Twenty meters kicked serious propagation as the CQWWDX starting gun sounded.
Many thanks to all those S9 Japan Zone 25 stations filling bandwidth as the
contest charged the ionosphere above. Three point Qs quickly populated my
logger and super charged motivation. I enjoyed my geographic advantage living
near the Pacific Ocean. However penetrating deeper into the Asiatic zone
cluster tested the station's capacity at 50watts into a $50 wire antenna. That
is when a personalized band map facilitated efficient skimming of self-spotted
multipliers. Overall, 20m remains the range of RadioSport Titans and I worked
my Qs in between the kilowatts.

Forty meters undoubtedly gets the best band award. I just cannot RadioSport
without my favorite low band at the minimum, minimum. However, the nature of
40m propagation forces one to forego sleep. I enjoyed simultaneous propagation
into Asia, South America, and the Caribbean on this spectrum space. Again, S9
Zone 25 Japan stations ruled my log. However I did hear XW1, RW0, 9M6, BY, but
just not enough in the antenna system this year. 

Eighty meters, on the other hand, did not produce Qs as I thought. Perhaps my
timing was off and I'll work on that next year with better charting. 

Fifteen meters is the band in waiting. I really missed South America and the
Caribbean this year. In fact, my performance on the band was, well, abysmal. My
hat is off to the King Henry Sixs for providing 50% of my 15m Q total. Perhaps
next year 15m will invigorate our antennas and sizzle our logs? I'm looking
forward to a different spectrum space next year.

I added a few firsts toward my 5BDXCC award chase with 3 new entities going
into the log on forty meters. And 1 new entity toward the first one hundred.
Additionally, I loaded my antenna on 160m as an experiment with 15watts and
discovered reasonable bandwidth and a stable standing wave ratio as well. Also,
I missed easy zones on at least three bands that is Zones 3,4, and five. My
operating technique is focused on scoring DX points and zones however knocking
off zero-pointers but with zone point impact is important. 

My ham radio fun meter pegged into the red zone and CQWWDX ruled my weekend.
Thanks to all those operators who filled my logger this weekend. 

73
Scot, KA3DRR


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